Inquisition, Indiana
by Paperclippe
Summary: "Eleanor was painting her house when the sky opened up." When a Breach opened on Eleanor's Indiana farm, everything changed. Now she must lead forces on her side of the Breach to help stop a threat no one suspected could ever occur on Earth. Are her mind - and her heart - strong enough?
1. Eleanor Was Painting Her House

_Author's note:_ What you are about to read is my 2015 National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) project, which is to say: it may or may not need lot of work. I have done nothing in the way of editing save for spelling and grammar and any enormously gaping plot holes. I'm posting it here to get a sense of what people think of it over all and am open to suggestions (or pandering and overblown compliments, those are always welcome).

I do want to point out one major thing, before I get a thousand comments (or two, whatever): I started writing this in May/June before I stopped and decided to save it for NaNo. As such, **it is not strictly compatible with the Trespasser DLC.** I already had something like 20k words before that content was released, so I decided instead of retconning such a huge piece of work, I would just let it stand as a piece of strictly non-canonical fic. I had read The Masked Empire at this point, so it's not entirely bonkers, but it has nothing to do with the content in Trespasser.

With that out of the way, let's begin.

* * *

Eleanor was painting her house when the sky opened up.

Actually, she was just about to take a break. She stood propped against her ladder, shielding her eyes from the late morning sun and wondering how hot the day was bound to get as she reached into her pocket for a pack of cigarettes. She brought the rolled, white paper to her lips and withdrew her lighter from where it was stored within the soft pack of smokes, bringing the flame to the end of the cigarette and inhaling deeply. She told herself enough dust was blowing in from the fields she'd left fallow this year - and good thing, too; there'd barely been enough rain to support the berries she was growing on the opposite side of her land - she could probably just breathe in if she needed any more particulates in her lungs, but it never stopped her from lighting up anyway. Slipping the pack back into her jeans pocket, Eleanor rubbed her eyes and worked her fingers into her loosening ponytail, working the elastic away from her scalp so that she could tie it up again, more tightly this time. She was just about halfway done with the house, she figured; she might be able to finish before evening if the sun didn't get too unbearable. Tomorrow at the latest. It was a big, old farmhouse, but it was all right angles, and she'd done this before. Her hair secured more tightly on her head now, away from her eyes, Eleanor took the cigarette away from her lips and breathed out almost as hard as she'd breathed in.

And that was when it happened.

There was a sound like a whip cracking, and not like that at all. Sometimes when the jets flew overhead from the airfield, if they hit mach speed at just the right instant, they made a sound like this, and for a brief second, that's what Eleanor thought it had to be, until she felt the shockwave. The tiny jolt from a flyover would hardly shake the windowpanes. This nearly knocked her off of her feet; it knocked her into the ladder well enough, and she found her arms flying out to catch the paint bucket that was resting on the third rung and steady it before she lost the better part of five gallons of Loyal Blue. A bit sloshed over the side and onto the ladder, but she probably had more than that on the front of her white t-shirt, and anyway, her priorities were rapidly shifting as a thin, green light filtered over the sun, pale at first, then heavier, like storm clouds. Eleanor tried to look up to see what was happening, cigarette clenched in her teeth, but the brightness of the day, the brightness of the green, and the obfuscation of the growing dark blurred her vision until all she could see above her head were roiling pea-green clouds.

It was a bit late in the season for tornadoes, and this far north she hardly saw more than one or two a year, if that, but Eleanor wasn't about to take any chances. There wasn't anything else it could reasonably be.

Reasonably.

She ran around to the front of the house and darted up the porch steps, slamming open the screen door and dashing into the kitchen. The door snapped back closed behind her. Digging through drawers, Eleanor grabbed candles, matches, a flashlight and a packet of batteries, and the master keyring - the ones with the keys to the barn, the shed, and the storm cellar. She grabbed her cell phone from the kitchen table. She chucked all of this in a cloth grocery sack that had been hanging up next to the fridge, and threw it onto the table. She flung her cigarette in the sink, and as quickly as she could, she went around the house upstairs and down, closing and locking all the shutters and windows, hoping it didn't fuck up her fresh paint too royally - as though a tornado wouldn't. She found Swiffer, her tiny grey kitten, who was blessedly still in the house, sleeping on the foot of Eleanor's bed, and unceremoniously threw the poor creature on top of all her storm equipment in the grocery sack. Then she picked the whole thing up, slung it over her shoulder, and made quickly for the front door. She heard Swiffer mewling pathetically as Eleanor slammed the front door shut. She was just about to jam her key in the deadbolt when it all stopped.

There hadn't been sound, except for the sound of wind. But now the silence was oppressive. Eleanor was frozen on her porch with one hand on the doorknob, one jabbing forth a key, afraid that if she stirred somehow she would bring it all back.

She held her breath.

She held her breath until she couldn't hold it anymore, and then she exhaled quickly, sucking in fresh, if dusty, air, feeling her lungs expand. Swiffer cried softly from within the grocery bag, and the flashlight and batteries clacked together as the animal tried to find its footing in the soft sack. Finding her strength, Eleanor backed away from the door, gripping the keys in her fist as she stepped down off of the wide porch and onto the lawn. She walked cautiously around to the side of the house where her ladder was still propped, paint still upright, Swiffer still meowing in a frustrated way, now trying to poke her head up and over the side of the bag. Eleanor swatted the cat gently back down, whispering to it, "Just wait one second." The kitten, sensing perhaps the urgency in her owner's voice, quieted now, and settled down to a stillness.

Eleanor peered up at the sky, fist that clenched the keys brought up to her brow to shield out the sun that now seemed as bright and strong as it had when she'd climbed down from the ladder for a smoke. It seemed bright and strong, but a bit… discolored. There was still a definite greenness to the sky, there were still fits of twisting clouds, but they all centered now around one central point, away from the sun, a point that seemed to want to pull up and in on itself at the same time that it forced out all the green. She had no good words for it, maybe whirlpool, or black hole, but nothing like that was quite right. It was like a second tiny green sun churning away in the sky, but not in space, no; it was in the sky she could fathom, some fixed point above her head, maybe a few hundred yards or even feet over her. She couldn't judge it exactly, but she knew it was close.

And below that all-too-close point churning and burning above her, some short distance away on the perimeter of her land where her lawn met her field, were people.

Eleanor backed up to the house, went back up the porch steps, unlocked the front door, and went back inside. She gently set the grocery bag down next to the coat rack, setting Swiffer free. Retrieving her cell phone as the cat bounded away from the bag and back into the kitchen, Eleanor stood and went to the hall closet. From within and beneath a forest of coats, Eleanor withdrew a shotgun. It was the only gun she owned, and she hated it, hated even the idea of it, but it had been her father's before he had passed away, and so she left it where he had left it in the closet, next to a box of ammunition. It was never loaded anymore. She didn't load it even now, only held the barrel of the gun in her left hand as she stuffed a few shells in her pants pocket with her right, and closed the closet door shut behind her. Equipped now with a phone, a half a pack of cigarettes, and a gun, Eleanor went back once again to her ladder, and watched to see if the figures approached.

They were at enough of a distance that Eleanor had to strain her eyes to see if they made any movements at all - she'd left her glasses on the nightstand - damn it; she hadn't wanted to get paint on the lenses, and besides, she almost never wore them when she wasn't in front of a screen - but Eleanor thought that, in that impossible silence, broken only by an infrequent and distant buzzing she figured must be coming from the green light above her, she could hear voices. And they seemed to be shouting.

The sound took her off guard, not because it scared her, but because the two most forward figures seemed to be as frustrated as she was right now. It was almost comforting, somehow. It was almost funny. They clearly weren't planning a stealth attack (though perhaps the light show was evidence enough of that), and now, from a half a hundred yards or so away, they seemed completely unable to get their shit together.

Maybe.

Behind the two leading figures was a row of what Eleanor could only assume were soldiers; she judged this solely based on how still and even these figures seemed to stand compared to the two closest to her, who were absolutely shouting, and possibly flailing.

This, if nothing else, gave Eleanor the courage to begin to walk forward, since she thought it might be a while before the figures decided to do the same. She walked slowly, non-threateningly, with the gun resting on her shoulder, barrel aimed well behind her and at the sky. Her right hand remained close to the cell phone in her back pocket, just to be safe, but she went on with confidence.

The figures caught sight of her, and their voices quieted.

Eleanor paused, and fear crept back in. With the sound dulled, the thing in the sky seemed even more present, even more threatening, and now, she remembered, completely inexplicable. What the fuck was going on here?

Staying still, she called out, "Hello there?"

There was a beat, and then a voice called back, "Hello! I don't suppose you've got a map, have you?"


	2. More Like a Breach Between

Eleanor approached the two men at the front of the group. Just a few feet away now, she looked them up and down and asked more confidently than she felt, "Guys care to tell me what you're doing on my farm?"

They were dressed… well, bizarrely, if she were honest. One was dark-haired and slim with a twirled mustache, the other broad-chested, blond hair shot through with grey, his face rough with stubble. That was all fine and well. But the mustachioed man was wearing some leather contraption, all adorned with buckles and fasteners and jewels, and the other was wearing what could only be described as armor. The armored man had a sword on his hip. The other, some kind of staff.

Eleanor chewed on a nail and in the silence muttered, "Bit early for Ren Faire, innit?"

"Excuse me?" the blond man said quickly.

"We're, ah," the dark-haired man cut his compatriot off, noticing the terseness in his voice as much as Eleanor had. "We're actually a bit lost, it seems."

Eleanor glanced from the thing in the sky, to the two men she was confronting, to the soldiers behind them who were shifting anxiously in the noon heat.

"Yeah, I'd say so."

The dark-haired man broke into a smile that could only be described as charming.

And also possibly slick.

"My name," he said with a bit of a flourish, but the broad-chested man interrupted him in a whisper that Eleanor could hear, and wasn't sure she shouldn't.

"Is none of her business until we find out who we're dealing with!" It was said through his teeth like he was anxious, like his anger might be directed mostly at himself, and like he might be just as scared as she was.

So she volunteered. "I'm Eleanor Redgrove. This is my land, and that," she made a conscious effort to point with the gun over her shoulder to seem as intimidating as she could, which probably wasn't very, "is my house. Your, I assume, soldiers?" she offered a question and a pause to allow them to correct her, but neither the two men or the soldiers spoke up either to correct the leadership or the occupation, "look hot. I've got cold drinks in the fridge." She didn't add that she was willing to take the strangers into her home because standing so close to the buzzing green void in the sky made her far more nervous than the man with the sword at this point, and she couldn't explain why, except for the fact that directly above her was a buzzing green void in the sky. And the dark-haired man didn't seem so bad. Even if she had no idea from where he'd come, or where had any of them.

"Dorian Pavus," said the mustachioed man with a bow and a little twirl of his wrist, the other hand palm out on his back. "And I certainly wouldn't turn down a drink."

"You never do," muttered the blond man. "Cullen Rutherford. Commander Cullen Rutherford," he repeated, with extra emphasis on the 'commander.' And he offered Eleanor his leather-gloved hand. She shook it firmly, looking him dead in the eye, and she thought she saw a smile flick across the corners of his mouth, but it was gone in a flash.

"Come on, then," said Eleanor, taking the shotgun from her shoulder and holding it carefully vertical along her side, "let's get moving. I'll get you drinks, and then you can tell me what exactly the fuck," and she pointed to the green void with a firm finger, "that is."

* * *

There were about ten soldiers with the two men and they hardly fit around the dining room table - which was to say they didn't, but with the soldiers in the dining room and Eleanor and the two men in the kitchen, the squeeze wasn't terrible. A few of the soldiers, Eleanor could see, sat in the chairs provided, and the others seemed perfectly happy to stand and drink the beers she'd offered them. Swiffer hadn't seemed thrilled about the influx of strangers into the house, but the slim man - Dorian - had seen her start to dart across the kitchen floor and deftly swept her up into his arms, petting her downy belly with a brown hand, and Swiffer was so overjoyed she went limp as she purred like an on-board motor.

"What is it with mages and cats," the commander said softly, his hip propped against the lip of the kitchen sink, leather gloves tossed onto the kitchen table so that he could grip the beer bottle, the glass slick with condensation.

Eleanor sat at the kitchen table, her eyes scanning the commander's gloves. Those were not crafted for show, she realized. Those were real gloves, real leather, a kind of leather she wasn't even sure she could identify, rough and scaly somehow, and those people in the dining room were real soldiers, though from what army - from what era? - she couldn't say. Her brain lit up with impossible possibilities.

Without looking up, Eleanor asked, "Who are you people?"

The commander sighed. She turned her eyes to him, and she saw his face soften. His eyes were deep brown, sad, lines of worry creased well into the flesh of his forehead. The blond of his hair was like straw, the grey seemed fresh somehow, new. She figured he couldn't be more than a handful of years older than she was - thirties, early forties perhaps - but he looked tired, harried, worn. He looked like he wasn't sure he wanted to do this anymore. He reached out with his empty hand and grabbed a chair from the table, pulled it out for himself, and sat, setting his beer down.

"Eleanor, look," he said earnestly. "There is very little chance that any of this is going to make sense to you."

"Oh, don't talk down to the poor girl, Commander," said Dorian, still snuggling the kitten, who was still pleased about the snuggling, "there's very little chance that any of this makes any sense to us, except that we have the distinct advantage of knowing about it first."

It sunk into Eleanor's mind for first time that the men had accents. She would call them English, but she didn't know very much about accents, and they weren't quite the same accent, either.

"Let's start small then," Eleanor groaned. "What's that thing in the sky."

Dorian answered succinctly. "It's a rift. A Breach."

Eleanor flicked her eyes from Cullen to Dorian. "A breach in what?"

Finally looking up from the cat, Dorian answered, "Well, that's a question. It's a Breach in… well, it's more like a Breach between."

"Between?"

"Between."

She stared him down, and he pressed his lips thin and put the kitten on the floor, who beseeched him to pick her up again by mewling sadly for a few moments, before stalking off.

Dorian folded his arms. "Between…" he began slowly, then looked to Cullen, as though for approval, but the commander just shrugged, palms open to the air. "Between our world and yours."

Eleanor cocked an eyebrow, expecting dissent from the more serious Rutherford, but none came. So she answered, "Huh." She decided to let that one go for now. She wasn't entirely sure how to object to it, at any rate. Standing up and shouting that that was bullshit didn't seem like it would get her very far. "Where did it come from?"

"Well, that one we made," Dorian offered.

"...That one?"

"...Ah."

"I thought as much," Cullen said, exasperated. He put his elbows on the table and his palms on his forehead, fingers in his hair. Swiffer curled around the commander's boots and meowed to see if this second new person would coddle her as well. Cullen peeked around his forearms to the floor, then lowered one hand to pat the creature on the head. "Hello, kit," he said gently. Seeming satisfied, Swiffer bounded away.

Cullen refocused on Eleanor, folding his arms on the table. "Your people don't know yet, then?"

Eleanor reached up to yank the hair elastic from her head. The tightness in her scalp was not being helped in any way by her sloppy bun, and she sent her nut-brown hair cascading down her back. Giving her scalp a quick scratch, then a rub, she said, "I don't have any people. But I sure as hell don't know anything about it. And I haven't heard anything online, either. Nothing on Reddit or Twitter or anything. I'm pretty sure I would have remembered something about a - a, what did you call it, a breach?"

The commander's eyes narrowed slightly in a way that indicated he had no idea what Eleanor was talking about apart from the fact that she was being honest about her lack of information. "Then you haven't seen any darkspawn?"

"Pardon?" Eleanor thought for an instant that this was some elaborate hoax, some trick being played on her by - by whom? It didn't matter - but it was wiped away by the sheer dismay on Cullen's face, by the pained way he held his hands out to his gloves, snatching them up and crumpling them in his fists. If this was a trick, these two were excellent actors, and that thing in the sky was an excellent effect. But if it were all real… She snatched up her bottle of beer and drained it, slamming it back down on the table. "I want some answers," she demanded, then seeing the stunned looks on the two men's faces, added softly, "please."

Dorian glanced to Cullen and crossed his arms, saying, "Reminds you a bit of Trevelyan, doesn't she." Then he turned back to Eleanor and said, "I asked you about a map?"


	3. This Isn't Magic

Eleanor sat before her iMac and brought up Google Maps. Dorian put his fists on his hips and leaned back to look at the thing while Cullen looked at the screen, and then behind the screen, and then back at the screen again.

"We were told you wouldn't have magic," he said, almost irritated.

"Well, if you had paid attention to a single thing Leliana's agents had told us, you would know, Commander, that this isn't magic," Dorian attested firmly, then leaned down to Eleanor and asked quietly, "What is it?"

Eleanor closed her eyes at the absurdity of the situation. This couldn't be happening. This was a dream. Magic? For fuck's sake. The commander had propped his sword - and shield, she had missed the shield, initially, strapped as it was to his back - up against the arm of the couch and Dorian leaned on his staff as though it were a walking stick.

Swiffer padded across the living room carpet and leapt up into Eleanor's lap, purring gently. That was their ritual; Eleanor would come here to kill time on slow nights, or take on some small web development work - her part-time job - since the farm was handled mostly by the hands themselves now, and even more so since Eleanor had sold off good chunks of the fields to the state of Indiana to allow for the construction of a small wind farm. There wasn't much left to do, and the profits that the agricultural work brought in were small, so she did what she could online, now. While Eleanor would work, Swiffer would enjoy the warmth of a lap. Even on the hottest of days, though, Eleanor figured, those were still yet to come. Swiffer had been born just after New Year's and while Eleanor still thought of her as a kitten, since the animal remained so petite and dustmote-like, she was going on six months old. But this would be the cat's first summer. So far, though, Swiffer didn't seem to be bothered by the heat, even when the warm fur on her lap made Eleanor sweat fiercely. She didn't have the heart to move the sleeping fluffball, though, so even now, with two strangers - strange indeed - watching her type in her own address on Google Maps, she let Swiffer remain where the cat had landed.

"So here's us," Eleanor said, pointing at the screen. She was surrounded by a vast sea of nothing. Her nearest neighbors were miles away on any side; she was almost that far from the road, if you excluded her driveway, and quite frankly, she liked it that way. It was always quiet. Even when the farm hands lived in the renovated barn during planting or harvest - that was really the only time she needed help anymore; she could tend to irrigation on her own and the beehives were her own special project to begin with - she experienced something like complete isolation, as much as a person could in the modern era. It suited her just fine. "Here's about where you all… came from, I guess," and she indicated a spot only a few inches away on the map; she'd zoomed out a bit, not knowing how large of an area they would need a map for.

"Can you see, uh, surface features on this thing? Mountains, valleys, all that?" Cullen asked, having finished his inspection of the back of the monitor.

Eleanor nodded and selected the view for terrain. She had to reorient herself but once she figured out what she was looking at, she said, "Yeah, yeah. Here's the creek along here, and this dark line is the ravine -"

"What ravine?" Cullen said it with such force that Eleanor had to blink a bit to remember what the name of the place actually was.

"Um, I think it used to be a tributary to the Ohio River. It's just a really old, dried-out riverbed."

"Deep?"

"Dunno, I've never been down there. Deep enough, looks like," she said, indicating the map. "Goes on for miles."

"That has to be it," Cullen said to Dorian. "That's why she sent us here. Let's go."

"But Commander," Dorian hesitated.

"What is it, Pavus?" his voice was stern now, like before. He had already turned on his heel to pick up his things.

Dorian looked at Eleanor and gave her a nod. "Don't you think she has a right to know?"

Cullen opened his mouth as though to object, but something crossed his face, a darkness, a knowing.

Dorian continued, "If this is going to affect her land, her home - Cullen, even if we stop this quickly, and there's no guarantee that we will, or can, she should know what she's in for." He tugged the commander away from the computer to the doorway, and whispered, just within the realm of Eleanor's hearing. Even Swiffer stopped purring and picked up her little grey furry head to observe. "She didn't run screaming at the sight of the Breach. She approached us. She's… she's helping. Maybe she can do more than that. Maybe we were sent here for a reason."

"I thought you didn't believe in reasons," the blond man hissed.

"Oh, don't play games with me now. You can despise me all you want, Commander," Dorian made the title ooze disgust when he said it, "but we were sent here, in the Divine's infinite wisdom, to establish outposts. To stop the Blight. And I don't seem to recall this ever having happened before, a Blight on an entirely different plane of existence. I don't seem to recall an entirely different plane of existence outside of the Fade, unless you'll suddenly claim to know more about those kinds of things than yours truly. If we're to stop this Blight, I suggest we start making some friends."

As Dorian spoke, Eleanor stood, letting Swiffer drop to the floor from the height of her lap. Before Cullen could respond to the dark-haired man, Eleanor intoned, "Blight?"

Eleanor knew about blights, she thought. Crops had been failing all over the county; it was all anyone could talk about that that spring's farmers' market. Thankfully her small berry harvest seemed to remained unscathed as of yet, but the fields she'd left fallow seemed drier, more barren than ever before. Normally weeds would poke up only to be cut down again by the tiller when she began to reseed, but this year, it was only brown dirt and dust.

"And there it is," said Dorian, turning away from the commander, and putting a knuckle to his chin.

"Flames, Pavus," the commander groaned.

"I don't know what's going on, alright?" Eleanor confessed. "You fucking weirdos can walk out of here and leave me none the wiser, whatever, fine. But…" she let out a long exhale, stuffed her hands in her jeans pockets, fingers on her left hand rolling around the shotgun shells, still there, and her chin dropped to her chest, as she hesitantly admitted, "I don't know. Maybe explain this to me. Maybe this is something I should know. For the moment, I think I'm willing to listen."

Cullen put his hands back up to his forehead, pressing on his brow as though to stave off a headache. Then he flung them down to his sides and reluctantly said, "It might be easier to show you."

Eleanor bit her lip. "Okay. Alright."

"We should get going. I'm not familiar with that… particular map…" he waved his hand dismissively at the screen, "but it could be several hours walk to that ravine, I think," Cullen said, peeking back over to the computer screen as though it were helping him at all.

"Walk?" Eleanor said with a small laugh. "I don't think so. Not in this heat."

"Do you have horses?" the commander offered.

Eleanor smiled broadly. "Something like that."

* * *

"I'm… not so sure about this."

"Ah, come, Commander. This looks like it'll be fun."

"Of course you would can say that," mumbled Cullen. "You're inside the… the… carriage. Thing."

Cullen Rutherford clung to the sides of the bed of Eleanor's pickup truck. It was an old, beat-up yellow thing, single cab, and Dorian had hopped into the passenger seat as soon as Eleanor finished explaining just what it was and how they would use it, tossing his staff in the back with Cullen. Strictly speaking, this wasn't Eleanor's primary vehicle; she had a little Honda Civic tucked away in the shed which had excellent trunk capacity when she laid down the back seat, so she used that for grocery runs and road trips and other ventures into society.

But she had just gassed up the truck and she didn't feel like unlocking the shed, and it wasn't like they would be taking any main roads to the ravine. It was maybe a half an hour's drive away. Okay, maybe more like forty-five minutes. Cullen would be fine. It was certainly safer than riding a horse. Probably.

From the driver's seat, Eleanor flicked open the back window and stuck her hand through to show Cullen the opening. "You can poke your head in and talk to us through here. Though you might want to keep your face away once we get up to speed. Don't need any split lips today." But Eleanor caught sight of the deep scar that already bisected the man's upper lip and figured he wouldn't be overly concerned about a cut or bruise received in the back of a pickup truck.

"Alright, we're ready to roll." She pulled her seatbelt down over her shoulder and clicked it into place, motioning for Dorian to do the same.

"Indeed?" he asked. "Just how fast will we be going?"

Eleanor shrugged, and turned the key in the ignition, giving the engine a little gas as she slipped the stick into first gear. At the sound of the revving, the slow movement as the wheels began to slowly roll out onto the drive, she saw Dorian's eyes grow wide.

"Your whatsherface not briefed you on cars?" Eleanor asked, but she had just about made up her mind. Either these two were completely off their rockers, or they really were from some… where? when? else.

"No, I do specifically remember something about this… I just hadn't thought…"

But whatever Dorian had or had not thought was lost as Eleanor shifted into second and began to pick up speed, and the dark-haired man immediately grew silent.

"I don't like this," Cullen mumbled from the bed, and then fell silent.


	4. Lovely Maize You Have

"So," said Eleanor, once they were on a long, straight stretch of disused back road, "should we, like, make small talk or something?" The shotgun shells were poking her in the hip and she shifted in her seat to rearranged them as best as she could without shifting pressure on the accelerator. She used the moment's adjustment to take her left hand off of the steering wheel and retrieve the pack of cigarettes from her back pocket. They were partly smashed now, but she'd smoked worse, and if hauling two men to a dry riverbed in a pickup truck Don McLean-style wasn't excuse enough for a cigarette, she didn't know what was. She brought the pack to her lips and gave it a little shake, and a slightly squashed filter jostled its way out of the pack. She stuck it between her teeth and pulled it out, then fished out the lighter and set the cigarette ablaze.

"Oh, I do hate small talk," Dorian moaned, letting one arm hang casually out of his open window. He seemed to be catching on to the experience much faster than his cohort, who was still clinging desperately to the sides of the truck and, when he deigned to turn his head forward, looking rather pale. But then again, Eleanor figured as she caught a glimpse of the commander in her rearview mirror, Dorian was sitting up front.

"You and me both," said Eleanor around her cigarette, then pulled it from her lips and let her wrist rest limply on the steering wheel. She breathed out a thick cloud of smoke and added, "but given the circumstances, I don't think too much talk would be small."

"You'd be surprised," Dorian offered. "I could say something like, 'Well, the sky is quite blue around here, isn't it?' or 'Lovely maize you have,'" and he indicated what was indeed a corn field to their right. "What is this place called, anyway?"

Unsure of how specific to get, Eleanor only replied, "Indiana."

"Indiana," he said majestically. "Well, that is something. What does it mean?"

Eleanor blinked. Of course she knew what it meant, but she didn't know quite how to deliver the history lesson without explaining how the European settlers of the land mistook the native peoples for an entirely different native people, or that there were no native peoples here really anymore, or what India was.

"It… uh… It's a long story. It means that this land belonged to someone else."

"Didn't it all," Dorian said flatly, and Eleanor was mildly shocked by the applicability of this statement. Perhaps his home and hers were not so different. After all, they both had corn, she thought with a small laugh.

"So, where do you come from?"

"I myself am from Tevinter, and Commander Killjoy back there is from a horrid brown place called Ferelden."

"Are those, like, states? Countries?" Eleanor guessed, hoping that her words would even translate, so she offered again, "Kingdoms?" She motioned in a circle with her cigarette for him to fill in the blanks if she was missing anything.

"Very good!" said Dorian brightly. "Ferelden is indeed a kingdom. Tevinter is an Imperium, an empire. A magocracy, to be specific."

"Dorian," Eleanor heard Cullen caution queasily from the back. But Eleanor had read exactly enough fantasy literature to parse the word, and the corner of her eye twitched a bit.

"Get the fuck out," she mumbled. She could take weirdos coming from the sky and landing in a field reverse Wizard of Oz-style, bringing swords and soldiers and threats of a blight, or a Blight, but magic?

Except that he had thought her computer was magic. Completely earnestly. Completely unfazed. Cullen was almost angry that she seemed to have what he thought was the very stuff. As though it wouldn't be tolerated. As though he had seen it before.

And all of a sudden, she wanted to believe. So she had to ask.

"You have mages?" and she took her eyes off of the road long enough to see Dorian's face split into a broad, white-toothed grin.

"My lady, I am a mage."

Eleanor slammed her hand down on the steering wheel and laughed hysterically. "No shit! That's… that's amazing! That's incredible! You can do magic?"

"Oh, blessed Andraste," Cullen groaned.

* * *

She spent the next half an hour quizzing Dorian about magic and laughing. She was willing to suspend her disbelief to learn something incredible. He'd have to prove it, of course, Eleanor insisted. He told her he wasn't sure it was safe to do any in the truck; he didn't know how the thing worked or how magic would interfere, but once they got back to Eleanor's home, or more, the empty field behind Eleanor's home - he didn't see fit to break any of her trinkets or dishes, not so soon into their friendship - he promised to show her.

"I'm sitting up there on the way back," Cullen insisted, sticking his head up to the small back window, and not just because riding backwards was making his head throb, but he didn't say that out loud. What he said was, "There are some things you have to understand about magic, Eleanor. About mages…"

But his voice quieted as they approached the ravine. Everything seemed to quiet. Eleanor shifted down into second and turned off the road going barely a dozen miles an hour. There was a wan breeze blowing into the cab of the truck, and it carried something on it, something none of the three of them liked.

"Am I… Do you…" began Eleanor.

"Feel that? Yes," Dorian confirmed, and Cullen grunted his agreement.

Eleanor slid the truck into neutral, killed the engine, didn't bother with the parking brake. She slipped off her seatbelt and opened her door, jumping down onto the grass. It had crunched beneath the tires, and now it crunched beneath her feet. It was dead. She shut the door as quietly as she could and surveyed the landscape.

Everything was dead.

There weren't many trees on this flat part of the Indiana landscape, but the few that she could pick out with her myopic vision were barren. There were no wildflowers, no weeds, no stray bushes at all. A few yards ahead of her, the thing she had remembered as a dry river bed, set maybe a few dozen feet deep down into the earth, was now a great gash, seeming to claw down forever into the bowels of the rocky crust.

"Fuck me…" she muttered. "Is this a Blight?"

Cullen came up behind her and rested a gloved hand on her right shoulder. It was his left hand; his right held his sword, bare-bladed and glimmering weakly in the washed-out sunlight. "Partly," he said to her gently. Gesturing with the point of his blade, he directed her vision to a spot further up the ravine from where she had parked the truck. "Can you see that?"

Eleanor squinted, and thought she saw something moving. A man? No. Something like a man, and not like a man at all. It was like the twisted impersonation of a man, a black and spiny thing, drawn out of darkness. She could smell its wrongness from where she stood. It hobbled awkwardly on two legs, and Eleanor wanted to hunker down, to keep herself from being seen, but Cullen stood up straight, defiant in the face of its darkness.

"What is…" she breathed.

"Darkspawn," said Dorian, at Cullen's right.

"That's the Blight," Cullen whispered. "Those… creatures… carry a powerful taint in their blood. It destroys everything it touches. If it gets in you, it turns you into one of them. A foul, loathsome thing, whose only purpose is to kill. To corrupt. And to breed."

Eleanor put her hand to her mouth, possessed suddenly by a powerful trembling. There was no way she could deny it now. She was looking into the abyss, and it was looking back into her, and it was filled with squirming, writhing things, and she had the distinct impression that they knew she was there, watching them, and they were watching back, and waiting. The death, the blackness, the taint - somehow, though she was overwhelmed by the strange, the incomprehensible, the impossible, she knew it in the animal part of her brain. She knew it, and she wanted to get as far away from it as her legs would carry her. The sickly breeze picked up her hair and blew it around her mouth and her nose and seemed to threaten to choke her, to take the very air away from her. She batted it away from her face with frantic hands, taking one unsteady step back, and then another, and another, until she was backed up against the hot grill of her truck, and she realized she was crying.

"I'm sorry," Cullen said, slipping his sword back into the sheath on his belt. "But… This is why we're here. We're here to stop that. To end the Blight."

"Well, what he means us, not us specifically, of course. Only Grey Wardens can -"

But Cullen shot Dorian a sharp look that said now was distinctly not the time.

"Ah. Yes. We should… be off then, I suppose."

Eleanor nodded rapidly, using her arms along the side of the truck to pull her toward the driver's side door, as though her legs might give out from under her at any moment. She pulled herself up into the seat, lit a cigarette, and sucked on it for dear life, hand shaking violently.

Outside, Dorian, walking slowly toward the vehicle, said, "We should wait to tell her about the Archdemon, then."

Flatly, Cullen answered, "Yes, Pavus. We should." And without waiting for the mage, he let himself into the cab of the truck, claiming the passenger seat for his own.


	5. One of the Least Unbelievable Things

The ride back to Eleanor's farm was silent. Neither man had any idea what to say to her. They hadn't realized it before, but they'd both lived in a world which had always held the possibility of a Blight. It was a horrible thing, to be sure; rare and horrible all the same, but Cullen had lived through the Fifth Blight. Dorian had at least been alive for it, and Tevinter had been the home of the First Blight, etched indelibly into the Imperium's history. Blights were, sadly, things that happened, they were things that were a part of both men's existing worldview. Eleanor's worldview had just come crumbling down, and the whole fucked-up day was slowly filling in the cracks.

A hole - a Breach - in the sky. People with swords. People with magic. People whose world didn't have cars. Or computers. Or iPhones. People whose world had magocracies. And evil.

That's what it was, Eleanor realized. What she had responded to so violently at the ravine. What was on the wind, what had swept up and surrounded her. It wasn't some nebulous idea of evil like she knew from politics and shaky far away camera angles on CNN. It was real, true, nauseating evil; the evil of murder and rape and hate. She had never been that close to it before. God, she was lucky. Had been so lucky. It had never touched her like that before. But back there, standing at the side of the ravine, she had been awash in it.

Bile rose in the back of her throat, and before she knew what she was doing, Eleanor had slammed on the brakes and the engine stalled and she threw open the door and threw up her guts on the dusty gravel road below. She was trapped by her seatbelt but she quickly gathered her hair away from her face with one hand and held on to the side of the truck with the other and vomited until her stomach was emptied and continued to gasp and heave even still.

Unexpectedly, she felt a hand on her back and Eleanor flinched, until she heard Cullen's voice say, "It's okay."

She threw him off. "Okay? Okay?! Nothing about this is okay! You! You come here, you bring this, you - you -" she gasped again, gagged again, threw up sticky hot yellow bile onto the road, wiped it away from her chin with the back of her wrist, and she wanted to keep screaming at him that this wasn't right or fair or natural, but she couldn't piece together the words and between her sobs and gags she couldn't only repeat, "Nothing about this is okay."

Dorian had jumped down from the bed of the truck and stood as close as he could to Eleanor without standing in her pool of vomit. His nose wrinkled, but he suppressed the action enough to tell her, "No. It's not." He reached out and pressed a hand to her knee, and through her jeans the skin of his palm felt warm, not warm like skin, but warm like a warm bath, and then Eleanor felt like she was drowning in it, if drowning were good, and some of the panic left her mind and her shaking stopped and she could breathe.

"But we are here to help," he assured her.

And Eleanor knew it was magic. In her and around her, stirring up a feeling of well-being inside of her, a feeling that for the past fifteen minutes, miles, had died. Reflexively, she reached out and pressed her hand on top of his, and she shut her eyes, and let the feeling take her, until Dorian slowly withdrew his hand.

She recovered with a deep breath, nodded, and slid herself back into an upright enough position to start up the truck again. She closed the door, and Dorian leapt up once again into the back of the pickup.

As they began to move, Cullen turned around to the little window, and mouthed to the mage, "Thank you."

Dorian gave him a smug nod.

* * *

The house was quiet; all of Cullen's forces were outside, doing drills and sparring like the soldiers they were, or resting on the soft lawn. Among them, a soft, grey kitten was playing, feeding off of the attention.

Eleanor had walked wordlessly into the kitchen, not asking Cullen and Dorian to follow but not expecting them not to, so they did. From the freezer she retrieved a fresh carton of cigarettes and chucked it onto the kitchen table; from the fridge she retrieved a six-pack of much cheaper beer than she had offered her surprise guests, and thunked the cans on the table with only slightly more care than she had with the carton. Quickly but carefully she popped open the carton, retrieved a fresh pack of smokes, and peeled the plastic wrapper off. She pitched it in the bin beside the sink and fetched a fresh ashtray. She threw out the empty pack of cigarettes but not before she saved the lighter, slipping the carton back into the freezer.

Eleanor sat back down, now well-supplied. She tore the foil from the pack of cigarettes, withdrew one, lit it, and breathed in deeply as she popped a can of beer from the plastic yoke, and cracked it open. She set the cigarette down in the ashtray, drank deeply from the beer, and nodded.

"Alright. How the fuck did this happen?"

Cullen sat, taking off his gloves and gesturing to the now five-pack of beer before him on the table. Eleanor swept out an open hand as though to say, "by all means," and popped free a can of his own, pulling back the tab slowly. The carbonation leaked out with an eager fizz. Dorian stood propped up against the fridge, right hand on his left elbow.

"I'll tell you what I - what we - know, but I'll be direct with you: it isn't much.

"Perhaps six, seven years past, now, an ancient darkspawn came into possession of an elven artifact that resulted in Breaches between reality and the Fade."

"I'm gonna stop you right there," Eleanor said, picking up her cigarette and holding it between her index and middle fingers.

"The elven artifact -" Cullen began to elaborate, but Eleanor cut him off.

"No, I'll buy that. Fine. It'd be one of the least unbelievable things I've believed today." She flicked ash into the tray. "What's the ...Fade?"

"This… might take a while," Cullen sighed.


	6. You Wanna Help, Commander?

It was getting on for evening when Eleanor felt like she had enough pieces to start putting the puzzle together. After Dorian had, at length, explained to her all of the finer points of the Fade and how it contributed to dreaming and magic, Cullen did his best to describe how the Breaches and rifts must have caused a more permanent weakness in the Veil, which separated Thedas - which contained Tevinter and Ferelden and plenty more besides - and the Fade, and apparently Thedas and Earth. Apparently Cullen and Dorian considered Thedas to be their own earth, even though there were apparently lands beyond the boundaries of this continent, but both Cullen and Eleanor had had a bit too much to drink at this point and it was either a failing of their vocabularies or their Weltanschauungs that kept the discussion from going any further, even when Eleanor stumbled through a brief tutorial of Google Earth on her phone.

There were additional Dalish - elven - artifacts that allowed for a strengthening of the Veil, and the rifts, the original Breach, were eventually closed thanks to the Anchor - a piece of the original artifact - lodged like a sharp piece of pencil in the hand of the Inquisitor, the leader of the Inquisition, unsurprisingly, who was also thought by many people to be a messenger from some kind of goddess. But when Dorian explained that the Inquisitor herself didn't buy into that, Eleanor was relieved. She was ready to believe in a lot of things but a God or any gods weren't yet one of them. The upside was that the Inquisitor could use the Anchor to willingly create pathways between Thedas and Earth, now that the two worlds seemed to have merged inseparably.

The takeaway from this, Eleanor surmised, was that the Veil had torn, and tears in the Veil were hard to heal, and some sort of metaphysical scar tissue had allowed her world and Thedas to merge, and at some point the Blight must have slipped through. What else might have slipped through besides, neither of the men could say. So far it was just they two, some soldiers, a few of Leliana's most trusted agents sent to places far away from here, and a horde of malignant demons.

They never mentioned the Archdemon. Both were agreed that dragons best wait until the following morning. Or week. Or month.

Now the six pack was gone and they had started in on another. Most of Eleanor's new pack of cigarettes had been smoked and the ashtray looked like a filter graveyard

"Do you… how do you… what are you…" It wasn't that she was drunk, it was just that she was trying to think of a way to phrase the question. "Do you folks plan on staying the night?"

"We… um…" Cullen answered equally hesitatingly.

"We would never dream of encroaching upon your hospitality, fair lady," intoned Dorian, and lifted his nearly empty can of beer in sort of salute, a toast to her kindness.

Eleanor shrugged. "No bother. I've got three empty bedrooms upstairs. Might need aired out a bit, is all. As for your soldiers, the barn out back's been renovated into bunks for my farmhands during harvest season, but right now it's empty. It's not lush, but all I have to do is unlock the door and flick on the breakers."

"Ah…" Cullen grasped, not fully comprehending.

"For power. Lights." She gestured to softly glowing bulb above them, to the hum of the running fridge. "There's a little kitchen in there as well, but the pantry probably doesn't have anything more than canned goods. Can't trust more than that, not with field mice."

Cullen stood and gave an appreciative bow. "We were planning on spending the night in the field; my soldiers have packs and provisions."

"What the commander means to say is, we would much rather sleep in a bed with a roof over our heads," Dorian blurted, then caught himself, "since you've said it wouldn't be any trouble."

Eleanor smiled crookedly, inebriated enough to let all of the weird roll off of her back while grasping on to the humor of a stranger. She stood, tamping out her last cigarette and scootching her chair back from the table. She gestured to the end of the hall, near the front door. "My room's down there, to the left. Er, well, to the right from here; to the left when you come in." She pushed her beer can a little further away. That was plenty, she realized. "You can knock if you need me. You both can head upstairs and pick a room. I apologize in advance; they're all a bit… floral. Mom was… Anyhow, I'll go unlock the barn for your people." And she was up and off to play hostess without another word.

In her absence, Cullen turned to Dorian and remarked, "I think she took that rather well."

"I'm sure the ale helped," Dorian replied, crushing his can in his hand. "Still," he offered, "she seems quite resilient." He looked up and around, and out the window to the empty field, stars peeking out now from under a crisp, blue blanket of sky, the very edges still tinged with the red-orange hue of a long summer day. "I wonder what Leliana would think of this place." The words held more meaning than to suggest the curiosity of an acquaintance who might like to see an Indiana farmhouse.

"You don't mean… an outpost? But this is her home!"

"I've seen worse," the mage remarked glibly, and tossed his empty can into a blue recycling bin where the remains of their previous six-pack had already been resigned.

* * *

Eleanor woke the next morning to find that she was still wearing her clothes. Then she found that her clothes were still splattered with blue paint.

She had completely forgotten. In all the chaos, the fact that her shirt and jeans - and her arms, and, god, she hadn't even looked at her face - were still spattered with blue oil-based paint.

The tin of which still probably sitting open on the ladder, if it hadn't fallen over. She wondered how much of it was salvageable.

Eleanor looked toward the bathroom, then toward her bedroom door, wondering if it was even worth it to put away the paint now before she got in the shower. Giving her armpit a tentative sniff, she decided that the cost of the paint was worth the trouble of waiting five more minutes to scrub the blue off of her skin.

Walking out into the hallway, the house was quiet. Everything was quiet. The sun hadn't quite risen, only showed its pale face enough to color the sky with a bit of grey haze, allowing her to see her way to the front door and out onto the porch where Swiffer was sleeping deeply in a cushioned wicker lawnchair. Eleanor didn't have a cat door, she had windows, and the kitten was clever enough to know which ones had screens in them. The little ball of fluff let herself in and out at her leisure, except in the event that she wanted Eleanor's attention, when she would paw at the screen door and make pathetic noises, which earned a momentary stink-eye from Eleanor, but which always faded quickly when she swept the kitten up into her arms and smooshed her face against the soft fur of Swiffer's belly, soft and warm like the remains of laundry left in the lint trap, which had earned the kitten her name. But for now the cat was self-satisfied and snoozing deeply in the pre-dawn morning, and Eleanor stood on the porch in the quiet morning and took in a deep, healing breath. The air was still cool; summer had not fully taken hold, not in the small, early hours of the morning, and Eleanor lost herself for a moment in its fleeting sweetness, knowing soon that the hot, dry mornings and unrelenting days of July would be on their way before she knew it.

And knowing, she reminded herself, what awful bleakness lay just beyond the horizon.

But now, in the cool, dewy morning, she couldn't feel or taste it, and with a stretch, she shook it off as best as she could, stepping down from the porch and onto the lawn in her bare feet. As she rounded the house on the right, a soft, swishing noise came to her. She halted in her tracks a moment, curling her bare toes around the cool grass, and then proceeded on slowly to where her ladder was, and the paint, which looked like it was still mostly a liquid and might be thinned out with a bit of turpentine… But her attention was taken away when her eyes were drawn up and out to the back lawn where she saw the commander swinging his sword through the still air, each cut making a slashing sound.

She watched him for a little while, watched his arms swing as he gripped the sword, sometimes with one hand, sometimes with two, watched as his feet in thick-soled boots danced elaborate patterns on the grass in what were probably prescribed series of moves that Eleanor could never hope to identify.

She watched him with her arms crossed, hands rubbing the bare skin below the shoulders of her t-shirt, picking little pieces of blue paint from her skin, until he turned on his heel and caught sight of her. He froze for a moment, then gave a nod and slipped his sword back into its sheath with an oiled precision.

Cullen put one open hand up into the air and hailed her from the small distance across the lawn, "Good morning!"

"Morning, Commander," she called back and began to walk to him. As she approached, she could see the sweat that had collected on his brow from his exertions. He shrugged his shoulders in his armor folded his arms across his chest. "You're up early."

"The soldiering life. But I could say the same to you."

"The farming life, Commander. Plus, I'm not sure how much more sleeping I could have done after… well…" she let her words die off but Cullen understood.

"I hope I didn't disturb you," he added, and she shook her head.

"Not a bit. Came out here to pick up some things I'd left lying around yesterday." Yesterday. It seemed like ages ago. "Be making some breakfast in a little bit, if you think you'll be hungry."

A warm smile spread across Cullen's face, and in an instant, he looked like an entirely different person. "I do believe I will be," he said.

She gave him a nod. "Let me put this paint away and, well, wash this paint off," she gestured to her shirt, her arms, "and I'll get cooking. You can wake Dorian, but I'm not sure I've got enough eggs for your troops…"

He waved her comment away. "They're already gone. Out to patrol the ravine." Cullen saw the concerned look that darted across Eleanor's face and quickly said, "Don't worry. Leliana has them under strict orders not to interact with the locals." He flushed, then realizing just who and what he was talking to. "Ah, well, you know… for…"

Eleanor gave a sly grin and shook her head, "I'll just have to trust you, Commander. Coffee'll be on in about ten, fifteen."

She turned and walked back to the paint, only half-realizing Cullen was following her as she picked up the lid from the grass and fitted it back onto the paint can, holding it securely as she pounded the two metal seals back together with her fist. A fresh line of blue rubbed off in a circle from her elbow to underneath her ribs.

"I just wanted to say," he began, and Eleanor almost jumped out of her skin, knocking the paint can against the run of the ladder and nearly dropping it for the second time in twenty-four hours. She sucked in a quick, steadying breath as he finished, "that I really appreciate this. I know that this can't be easy for you."

She turned to face him, putting one hand to her chest to calm the sudden thumping of her heart, "It's no problem. Really. I guess I would have found out about this whole thing one way or another." Eleanor wiped off her hands on her shirt. "At least this way I get in on the ground floor."

Cullen's smile turned crooked and he said, "Well, if there's anything I - we - can do to help you, just let me know."

"You wanna help, Commander?"

He nodded, and she thrust the paint can into his hands.

"Shit's heavy. You look strong. You wanna help, you can take that down to the basement. End of the hall, door's on the left. Don't get any blue on your..." she moved her hands in an up and down motion along the shape of her body, indicating his armor, or whatever he called it; she didn't know.

Briefly baffled, Cullen quickly regained his composure and held the can by its stiff, wire handle, and he bobbed his head in assent again, if more tentatively this time, and began to walk back toward the porch.

"Oh, and Commander? Don't track mud on my floors."

"Cullen," he called back. "You're not under my command. Call me Cullen."

"Ellie, then" she hollered to him. "No one calls me Eleanor."

She heard his boots on the steps and the screen door slammed. If Dorian wasn't awake before, he would be now. Nothing about Commander Cullen was subtle. Especially not his footsteps.

Eleanor looked down at herself, extra blue now. The ladder could wait. No point moving it if she were just going to come back and paint more soon. Or even not so soon. The effort to haul it back down into the storm cellar was more than she was prepared to exert at the moment. Not before a shower, and certainly not before coffee.


	7. Such as It Is

The sun was just showing its full face when the coffee pot burbled to signal its task was complete. Eleanor, damp-haired, fresh-clothed, reached for three cups from the cabinet next to the sink and set them down on the table with a dull thud. The milk and sugar were already out, and Swiffer was happily lapping up her wet food from beside the fridge. On the stove, eggs were sizzling, and in the oven, for want of a larger toaster, bread was slowly turning brown. Cereal was on offer should Eleanor's hot breakfast prove not filling enough for the two grown men who sat patiently at the kitchen table. The dining room seemed excessive and impersonal for just three.

Dorian looked tired. His hair was slightly askew and he kept rubbing his eyes, so Eleanor presented him with his hot coffee first, gesturing toward the cream and sugar.

Dorian sniffed it. "So… this is some variety of tea, then?" he asked, a bit blearily.

Eleanor's brow furrowed. "It's coffee," she said bluntly, and mimed bringing a cup to her lips to drink.

Cullen and Dorian just stared back.

Eleanor sighed. "Yes, it's like some kind of tea. Like really strong tea. It's good. Drink it." Then under her breath, she murmured, "Christ Almighty how do you get through the day without coffee." She poured a cup now for herself and for Cullen, and still standing, she took a long drink of her own, immediately feeling some of the tension from the previous day unwind from her shoulders and neck. She watched them as they mimicked her, and she only warned, "Careful, it's hot."

Cullen drank tentatively at first, then, brows raising in a gesture of intrigue, took a long, deep gulp from the cup. Dorian sipped and then set the cup back down, looking from side to side.

"No?" Eleanor asked him.

"It's like drinking boot polish, I'm afraid."

"You've drunk boot polish?" Cullen teased.

"Well, if you don't like it, you don't like it. I can fix tea, or you can heap in some sugar like my dad does - did. Dad did."

"Well, I think it's good," Cullen volunteered, and took another drink.

"Plenty more where that came from," and as Eleanor turned back to flip the eggs, she gestured to the half-full coffee pot with her own mug before she set it on the counter to better tend to breakfast.

* * *

The plates were empty as quickly as they had been filled.

Dorian wiped his mouth with a paper towel and took a drink of his coffee, which, after having doctored it with about a fifty-fifty ratio of cream and sugar to actual beverage, he decided was, "not entirely undrinkable."

Cullen sat back in his chair and put his hands on his stomach and looked satisfied. "Thank you, Ellie. That was excellent."

Dorian shot Cullen a glance and mouthed, "Ellie?" but Cullen either didn't notice or pretended not to.

Eleanor, nibbling the last of a crust of bread, said, "Well, I appreciate that. You should see what I can do when I've got some real groceries in the house and time to put it all together. I could make a CostCo trip today or tomorrow, I suppose, depending on how long you folks plan on being around."

Now it was Cullen who looked to Dorian. The mage pushed aside his coffee, folded his hands, and leaned forward. "We actually wanted to propose something to you, Eleanor. Please, don't feel as though this is something you can't refuse. But we had thought -"

"You thought," Cullen interjected.

"I had thought," Dorian now repeated with emphasis on the pronoun, "and the Commander did not disagree that your land would prime location for an outpost. You have space, both interior and exterior, you have farmable land, so long as, shall we say, conditions allow for it, and you're secluded from the general populace. Not to mention, of course, the unfortunate fact that you are close to the ravine."

Eleanor gave a tentative nod, and Cullen sat up quickly, leaning over to the left, toward her, and placed his left hand flat on the table next to her coffee cup. "All that said, we would remain here to protect this land, which would always remain yours, and we would compensate you for any expenses you might incur on our behalf, as well as a stipend for your becoming an agent of the Inquisition."

She cocked an eyebrow at him, and slowly said, "Alright. But I have a few stipulations."

Cullen nodded quickly and said, "Name them."

Pulling her damp hair over her shoulder, she leaned in to equal the commander, pointing the tip of her index finger down next to Cullen's hand for emphasis. "The house is mine. No soldiers tracking in and out at all hours. Which precedes my next request. I do have a job - well, jobs - to do. The fields that are planted will need to be maintained, the hives need to be tended, and my in-office work needs to be undisturbed. I need to be allowed to do these things, stipend or no. And lastly, I insist that I am told everything. Everything. I don't want to be left in the dark, and I want to be 'protected' even less. You learn something, you tell me next, even if it's utterly irrelevant. This is my home, my land, and I take great pride in that, in knowing every stupid rock and weed and rodent that's on it. That doesn't change." She softened, flattening her hand out next to Cullen's. "In exchange, I'll be your go-for. I'll get you supplies, run errands insomuch as I can, and…" her firm language dropped out a bit, "kind of… handle…" she held up her hands, palms out, and gestured toward the outside world in a circling motion, "...all that stuff. Stuff where you maybe can't be. It sounds like your Leliana person has a lot of that covered, but it looks as though maybe you'll have a lot more immediate access to me, and last I checked, you people didn't know what a car was, much less how to drive one, so I'll be a lot quicker in a pinch, I'd think."

Cullen sat back, looked to Dorian, who gestured with a shrug that it was the commander's decision.

Thoughtfully, Cullen nodded. "I think we can manage that."

Eleanor smiled and pushed back her chair to stand. She offered the commander her hand. He rose and took it, clasping her elbow with the his other open hand.

"Welcome to the Inquisition, Eleanor Redgrove," he said proudly, and then lowered his voice, adding, "Such as it is."

Dorian shook his head with a smile, and took a sip of his coffee.


	8. Better Make the Whole Pot

The map was spread out wide on the dining room table. Eleanor hunched over it, hands pressing the curly edges flat. Even in the dark morning, the early August heat, the humidity, made the edges of the map roll up defiantly. Cullen leaned over from the other side and pointed, their foreheads almost touching over the center of the table.

"For the past month, the darkspawn movement has been fairly confined to the ravine," he said his finger tracing a long, dark gash on the brown map. It was a map of Indiana, but it had been made in the Frostbacks, and the vellum that it was printed on looked like something out of the Middle Ages, even though it had been made no more than a few months prior. Indeed, the parchment was in too good of shape, the ink too fresh, too pale, its iron-based blackness not yet fixed with time, to be something truly old. In the watery morning light, however, the brief cognitive dissonance that Eleanor had felt as she walked into the dining room and saw the map spread large was hard to shake. This was here, she reminded herself. This was now. This was home.

"Right," she answered, and scootched her own finger over to the northerly opening of the valley, where earth had banked and created a ramp. It was a natural formation, and had been there for years, but it created a sudden drop down into the old riverbed and made the ravine look as though it had been gouged from the ground by a giant plow. The map somehow captured that. "Except for last week -"

"Yes," he agreed. "The darkspawn headed north toward the - the, uh, m-motorway. Our troops quickly cut them off, but the sudden movement was unexpected."

"And?" She knew there was an "and." He wouldn't have knocked on her bedroom door at four fifteen in the morning if there hadn't been an "and."

Still hunched, he looked up to meet her gaze, and moved his hand to a small acreage of fields, just a few miles from the land Eleanor had sold to the power company - still no windmills, she thought, which would have irritated her if she weren't dealing with this Blight shit. "This morning, at about -" he glanced up to look at the clock that hung from the dining room wall, "- about one-thirty, my troops spotted movement while on patrol." His stern delivery relaxed a bit when he disclosed, "Thank the Maker Annisa has good eyes, and that it was a full moon. I never would have seen it." He looked tired, the circles under his eyes darker than usual. Cullen seldom went on patrol with his soldiers, but he would from time to time to get a sense of morale and make sure he knew as much about the area as they did. He couldn't afford to get rusty, to get complacent. "It was only a small group of darkspawn; a few genlocks and a hurlock. But to be so far from the ravine, to have escaped our notice…" he sighed and stood, straightening his back with his knuckles in his spine. "We had a few minor injuries, but nothing a tight bandage and a cold drink can't fix."

Eleanor stood and let the map curl back on itself as the commander concluded, "I'm sorry, Ellie. We shouldn't have let them get this close. I don't know how…" he shook his head, looked at the floor. "It doesn't matter how. I won't let this happen again."

She rubbed her eyes, her forehead with the heels of her hands. Her leftover makeup was smudged; hair in disarray. "Cullen, this isn't your fault," she said, looking at the black streaks on the white skin of her palms, wondering if she'd just smeared old mascara up to her hairline. But it wasn't important. "You, your soldiers, did exactly what I need you to do. Frankly, I'm glad of it." She wiped her palms on the front her black tank top, jeans, hastily-adorned, askew on her hips. She glanced up to the clock. "Too late to go back to bed. Coffee?"

"Better make the whole pot," Cullen groaned.

* * *

Eleanor washed the old makeup off of her face and tied her hair back in a matted braid. Cullen had quickly showered and pulled on the clothes Eleanor had begun to supply for him: a white t-shirt, the kind that came in packs of five, and jeans. He wore his same rough leather boots, but still, the effect was striking. He looked like a linebacker and sounded, to Eleanor's Hoosier ears, like Sherlock Holmes. It was weird to watch him speak without all that armor on.

Face down in her coffee, Eleanor said, "I'm going into town today. Your people need anything? First aid supplies? Rations?"

Cullen shook his head wearily, then something struck him. "Flames, I'd entirely forgotten." He got up and left his coffee, and Eleanor craned so far as to see him go up the stairs. His footsteps sounded like he'd gone to his room, and then started back. A moment later he was back at the table, a thick parchment envelope in his hands.

"It took Leliana a little while to figure out how to exchange currency, but she must have found someone. Here you are. Stipend and expenses."

Eleanor set down her coffee cup and opened the envelope as Cullen resumed his seat. He seemed unphased. Eleanor began to count, but when she'd spread out enough money on the table to lose track, she looked at Cullen with a disbelieving expression. "Is this… the whole thing? In one go?" She was wondering if she should invest it.

Mid-drink, Cullen shook his head. "Mm. No, no. A few months, I should think, if only because of the difficulty with the exchange."

"Cullen, this is like thirty thousand dollars."

He narrowed his eyes. "I don't…"

"Just what… kind of currency do you people use?" she asked, stuffing the bills back into the envelope.

"Gold, silver mostly. There's some trade in precious gems, but -"

"Never- never mind. I get the picture."

"It's enough, then? I was concerned, with you helping to support our people..."

Eleanor blinked at him, dead-eyed.

"Ellie?"

She slapped the envelope on the table. "It's about what I make in a year."

"Well, then," said a voice from the doorway. "Buy yourself something pretty." Dorian slipped into the room wearing only black flannel pajama bottoms. "Breakfast?"

"Why, are you offering?" Eleanor gently jabbed, the tiredness pouring back into her like a dam had broken.

"Ooh, testy this morning."

"We've been up for a while," Cullen defended.

Dorian took a quick moment to survey the pair, both with dark circles under their eyes and slumped posture. His tone immediately shifted from badgering to serious. "What happened?"

"Darkspawn," Eleanor mumbled, reaching for her coffee.

"Near the farm," Cullen clarified, pressing his thumbs to his cheekbones under his eyes and rubbed them in circles, knuckles from his fingers pressing into his lips.

Dorian sat. "Leliana will want to hear about this. The Inquisitor -"

"Then draft a letter, Dorian," Cullen said, and it would have been sharp if it were not softened by the hour.

Dorian took it in stride. After so many years, he was used to the commander and his temper, and he knew that most of the things he said in anger were not things he meant, or meant to say. When Cullen was really cutting, it was when he was calm. Dorian thought possibly it was still a side-effect of the former templar's system being free of the lyrium it had grown used to feeding off of for so long. Or perhaps the commander was exactly what he appeared to be: a short-tempered man who below the surface could probably never hurt a fly, unless that fly had an army. Or was a mage. And he might still feel bad about it.

Pavus stood and said, "Well, I can make some toast."

* * *

 _Author's note_ : First of all, I just wanna say thanks so much to all of the people who are favoriting and following this story. By percents, this is already my most popular story to date (humble brag? Maybe) and I've only been posting it for a few weeks. The view counts don't hurt either. And to the person who left the really lovely - and considered - review yesterday, thank you. It absolutely made my day, and I had a shite day at work, so that means a lot. I would love to thank you by name, but it was an anonymous comment, so I'll let you keep your secrets.

Second, I do post updates (and random but related thoughts) in the profile from time to time if you're ever interested. That's not really relevant, but it is something I keep up-to-date, just in case you're ever curious about the progress of a story. Which brings me to my next (two) point(s).

Third, Inquisition, Indiana is finished; I gave it a good going-over, so barring any changes my beta reader wants me to make, I am done writing it. (And if we do make any changes together, I will post the first draft first and then repost an update, so rest assured there will be no delays in publishing due to rewrites.) It is, in total, more than 109,000 words long, split up into 62 chapters, so there's a lot more coming your way.

Which means, fourth, I am out of stuff to write. Do any of you have ideas for a story? Is there anything more you'd like to see? I'm looking for something new to work on (and I'm also starting another playthrough of Inquisition, because reasons), so if there's something you'd like to see me write, at this point, I'm more than willing to listen to ideas and start something new.

So that's everything, kids. Sorry for the epic note, thank you for your support, and I hope you guys keep reading.


	9. The Idea of a Store

Shopping for an army was exactly as grueling a task as it sounded, and after her early-morning wake-up, Eleanor didn't trust herself to do it alone. Nor did she trust herself with the nearly two thousand dollars in cash she had in her wallet. She figured she could deposit some of it in the bank but the rest of it she would just have to spend. And with the envelope, she did what any self-respecting person who comes into a suspiciously amount of large, unmarked bills would do: she put it under her mattress.

Cullen sat in the passenger seat of the Civic, threatening to nod off. She decided if he did, she would let him nap, at least on the way there. Dragging his ass to CostCo would probably be easier on the commander than having him try to deal with his post-combat troops on exactly no hours of sleep. At least she'd gotten maybe four. The commander, his face pressed up against the cross-body seat belt, eyes flicking open before sliding desperately closed, had clearly gotten none.

Eleanor put on the radio softly and watched the landscape roll past. The sky was grey, threatening rain, which was good; they needed it. She'd been using irrigation system on her small berry patch far more than she felt like she normally would, and if she kept spending all the money on the water bill, the berries would hardly turn her a profit.

Not that it mattered, she remembered, glancing again at Cullen.

It was the bees that worried her most; profits or not, she wanted to make sure they were alright. Wildflowers still lined the highway, alfalfa flowers still bloomed their purple blossoms, but with the decline in bee populations already sharp, she'd been keeping a close eye on them. The queens seemed healthy, but, and maybe she was just being paranoid, the worker populations seemed a little smaller than they should. She worried that her constant pestering would scare them, disrupt them more, so for the past few weeks she'd just let them do their thing. She'd get the honey from the frames soon, but mostly she didn't want to disturb them. As a result, however, she could only do an exterior inspection, and she couldn't tell one way or the other if there were any cause for concern. She didn't want to bring in any additional queens unless she absolutely needed to, but she hadn't seen any swarming this year. Should she have had to split the hive by now?

Eleanor sighed. The Inquisition had been here just shy of two months now. Summer's hold was at its tightest, but soon it would back off. Autumn would be nice; cooler, softer, redder. It was the first time Eleanor could remember looking forward to it. But summer had gone by in a flash. She just didn't want the rest of the year to do the same.

"Banner year, too," she mumbled to herself, jabbing at the radio controls to flip from a commercial to music, any music.

"Hmm?" asked Cullen dreamily from the passenger seat. Eleanor shook her head.

"Just thinking," she told him, taking her eyes away from the road long enough to give him a reassuring smile. He smiled back and reached across the center console to pat the top of her leg, then turned over toward the window and drifted back to sleep.

* * *

She realized, as she gave the cart a nudge to push the commander further down the aisle, that this was the first time she had taken him out shopping.

Perhaps this had been a mistake.

Cullen stood amidst the giant pallets of bulk foods and looked around in awe. He left the cart in the middle of the aisle and seemed not to hear Eleanor asking him to help her grab things on higher shelves.

"Cullen," she went around to the front of the cart and tugged it out of the way. "Cullen, come on. Let this lady through," she said, and directed both buggy and man to the side of the aisle so a mom with her two children riding side-by-side in the upper compartment of a large cart could get past. She walked back around to the commander and grabbed his elbows, scootching him out of the way. "Hey, you're supposed to be helping."

"I," he said, not looking down, eyes still scanning the shelves, "...sorry. There's just… it's a lot of…"

"Right, and we need to take some of it home," she said. Eleanor knew she was being impatient with him, knew she should have expected some level of culture shock, but she was exhausted, and the store was busy, and she just wanted to grab eight hundred pounds of canned goods and go home.

Well, maybe not exactly that. But she wanted to load up the cart and, as her dad would have said, boogie.

Finally, Cullen looked down at her, Eleanor's hands still on his elbows, and he said, "We can have these things?"

Eleanor rolled her eyes. "I assume you're familiar with the idea of a store."

He shook his head, then halted and said, "No, I mean, I am. Of course."

"Come on," Eleanor urged, releasing him. "Let's get moving. You can ogle while we shop."

Eleanor let him pick out things he thought he and his people could use - even as he kept insisting that they were fine, they didn't need anything, they could always get a periodic resupply from Skyhold, and Eleanor insisted back that yes, that was true, but they were at CostCo right now, and could be home in an hour or so. Reluctantly, Cullen placed a few self-indulgent items in the basket, and Eleanor placed a few more: bulk supplies of aspirin and bandages, vitamin c supplements, hand sanitizer. For the house she grabbed what could only be described as a mountain of eggs, hustling Cullen to be careful, be careful as he lowered each large carton onto the bottom of the buggy, loaves and loaves of bread, more fresh and frozen veggies than she was confident she could fit in her freezer, and what felt like a hundred other things that just sounded good. In addition to the beer she'd been planning to buy anyway, she also got a few bottles of wine and some cheese. It had been a long time since she'd had money to burn. She wasn't going to squander away her whole stipend - what if her small harvest of crops was no good, what if there was something wrong with the hive, what if she couldn't find time or jobs online; she still worried about these things as though Cullen hadn't promised her the money he'd just given her four times annually - but tonight she was going to sit down with a book and she was going to drink some wine and she was going to eat more cheese than her vascular system was prepared for.

But first, she decided, as Cullen helped her load everything into the trunk of the car, cardboard dusting her shirt, condensation from cold veggies on her hands, she was going to take a long, long bath.


	10. But I've Got a Gun

The reason Eleanor kept the bedroom on the lower floor of the house was because it was the one with the full bath. Upstairs there was a shower, but down here, the full left corner of her bedroom was taken up by a bathroom with an old, claw foot tub and a sink with a giant vanity mirror.

Eleanor had dumped the better part of a jar of bath salts into the water and ran it hot, despite the summer temperatures. The sky had opened up on the way home from the store and Eleanor had run the Civic through the mud to take the soldier's supplies out to the barn. She dropped him off there and had taken the rest of the things into the house herself, her shoes and jeans becoming slick with mud with each successive trip. She'd left her shoes on the porch, mopped up the mud, and thrown her jeans in the hamper, and now slipped down into the deep, warm bath to wash it and the already-long day off of herself.

The windows were covered with heavy drapes for privacy but the panes were open, and they let in just enough of the rainy light and wind and rain sound to soothe Eleanor into a sort of waking sleep. She let her long hair slip down into the water, let it cover her up to her chin.

She'd either closed her eyes or lost track of time because the next thing she knew, the sun had gone almost entirely down, the only light left in the room a sort of hazy blue twilight, and the water was not cold, but it was tepid, and there was a pounding on her bedroom door.

"Eleanor! Ellie!" It was Cullen's voice. He pounded again.

"Cullen!" She sat up in the bath, and hoped he could hear her voice between a room and two doors. "I'm in the bath! Gimme just a minute, okay?"

"Bad news, Ellie; hurry!" he called back.

She sighed, yanking the plug, the opaque water swirling down the drain. She wanted to wash the salt off of her skin, out of her hair, but apparently there wasn't time for that. "You can come in the bedroom," she shouted, standing and reaching for the towel. The room seemed chilly, too chilly, and she couldn't tell if it was from the bath or the storm or something else entirely, and she quickly dried off, listening as Cullen swung the bedroom door open and closed. Eleanor wrapped the towel around herself tightly and went into the bedroom to meet him, and to find some clothes.

"What is it?" she asked him, barely casting him a glance as she went to her dresser for garments.

Cullen was propped up against the doorframe, half in his armor and half out - knee guards over his jeans, cuirass and spaulders and pauldrons, sans fur, over a dirty t-shirt. His worn leather gloves were shoved in his front pocket and he was picking anxiously at a thumbnail. He looked up at her, biting his lip, and said, "I'll give you two guesses."

"God damn it," Eleanor groaned. She figured it had to be darkspawn, but for Cullen to be kitted out meant his troops needed reinforcements. "Let me dress," she said, skillfully wiggling underwear up without lifting her towel. Cullen averted his eyes but there was no need; Eleanor clasped her bra over the towel and when she let it fall to the ground, she was covered as much as she cared to be.

"You don't need -"

"This is my fucking farm," she said sternly, hiking her jeans up to her hips and zipping then violently. She pointed at Cullen, "And I may not have all that, but I've got a gun."

As she yanked a shirt from her drawer and tossed a pair of socks onto the area rug, Cullen said softly, "I don't want to put you in danger."

Part of her wanted to smile. Part of her wanted to shout at him. But there wasn't time for either, so she pulled the shirt over her head and said, "Tough luck, Commander."

* * *

Her boots sunk into the mud, and Eleanor steadied the shotgun on her shoulder.

Just because she hated the gun didn't mean she didn't know how to use it. She and her father had picked off empty beer cans from a few hundred feet when she was young, and she had been good. She'd only stopped when he'd tried to get her to hunt rabbits with him - rabbits that had, admittedly, been chewing the shit out of their lettuce - and when Eleanor saw the blood and guts sprayed across the field she cried until she threw up. She hadn't shot the gun since then, and she didn't know how much of her skill remained, but she could at least say confidently that she knew what she was doing.

The rain rolled down her back. It had splattered her glasses too badly for her to put them to any real use, so she pushed them up on her head to keep her hair out of her eyes. They did more good there than they had on her face, but ahead she could only make out blurry shapes, her bad eyesight, the distance, the night, and the rain colluding against her. She couldn't take a shot until she knew she had a shot, and with the soldiers - and Cullen and Dorian - fighting the darkspawn in such close quarters so far away, she didn't have anything like a shot she could take. But Cullen had demanded if she were going to fight, she was going to stay well away from the actual fighting. So far as he was concerned, she was protecting the house, but from back here, she just barely make out the actual battle at all.

But she could hear it. Clashes and clangs, metal on metal, a buzzing zap, not unlike the one that had opened the Breach - the Breach that had dwindled to a pale, green speck in the sky except for when it was being used - that she assumed was the sound of Dorian's staff in action, and screams. So many screams.

Very rarely, it was the men and women who screamed. Much more often it was the darkspawn, howling like demons with otherworldly fury and pain. Eleanor hoped that this was a good thing, hoped that this was a sign of their imminent defeat, but as cold rain streamed in rivulets down her spine and into her jeans, she was feeling pretty defeated herself. She felt like she had been standing on the lawn for hours, arms growing tired from holding the shotgun against her hip, the sight up to her eye, and she was no longer sure it would fire in such heavy precipitation. She held it anyway.

There was a large burst of light, and then silence. Silence, except for the rain.

Eleanor stayed frozen, still holding her gun, in case this was the very moment she needed it. Then, unable to bear the stillness any longer, she flicked on the safety, held the gun by its barrel, pointed it at the ground to keep the rain out, and ran headlong toward the battlefield.

She reached it more quickly than she had expected to. What had seemed so far away when Eleanor was waiting, forced to hold her ground, she now came upon quickly, the combatants growing rapidly in height as her perspective changed. When she was only a few yards away, she called out, "Cullen! Dorian!" She couldn't see anymore fighting.

"Ellie!" she heard the commander's voice. "I told you to stay near the house!"

She jogged up to him, dripping wet, glasses askew on the top of her head, and said breathlessly, "I saw a light. It got quiet." Eleanor surveyed the troops, and saw Dorian being held up by his arms between two soldiers who looked almost as wiped out. The exhausted mage smiled weakly, and gave Eleanor a wink.

Dashing over to him, she put a hand on his forehead first, then his chest, and said quietly, "Are you alright?"

"Fine, I'm perfectly fine, Ellie. A bit winded, is all. I'll just have a nice rest now, if these two strapping young lads wouldn't mind taking me back to my room…"

"Be careful with him," she told the soldiers, and they smiled up at her, sensing her tentative levity.

She turned back to Cullen, who was surveying the scene. On the ground were dead darkspawn. Maybe a dozen. The most they'd seen out of the ravine so far. And they were so close to the farm. So close. A few soldiers were inspecting the bodies; a young woman picked up what looked to be some kind of amulet before she tossed it back down onto the corpse. "Nothing, Commander," she called over the sound of the rain.

"Son of a bitch!" he cried, and threw his sword flatly into the mud, grasping his hair with his gloved hands and shouting wordlessly at the sky. As he stretched, Eleanor caught a glimpse of red on his shirt. Bright red. Even she now knew that darkspawn blood was more red-black, not at all light the bright stain she could even make out in the midnight haze.

Eleanor reached out, as though to touch him, and said, "You're bleeding."

Cullen looked down at his own shirt, pulling it out and away from his body. "I'm…" it was almost a question at first, then his resolve strengthened again. "It's fine, it's nothing." He took a long, deep breath and, letting his head hang a bit, he pointed back to the house, before bending down to pick up his sword. "Come on. Let's go." They followed the two soldiers that carried Dorian, and the rest of the troops followed behind. All of them walked in silence.


	11. It's a Long Story

Eleanor barely had the strength to shower but she forced herself to do so. She couldn't imagine getting under her blankets caked in mud like she was. The rest of the house would have to wait. The soldiers had tracked it all upstairs when they took Dorian to his room, and Swiffer had tracked tiny pawprints all through it and carried it on padded feet into the rest of the house. She had tracked it in the front hall too, not thinking to take off her boots before she went in the house. Cullen had gone back to the barn to get something for his cut. Yes, the house would be filthy, but at least she would be warm and clean.

Pulling her hair back into a braid and slipping on an old t-shirt and fleece pajama bottoms - the warmest pajamas she had in her drawers this time of the year - Eleanor wearily left the bathroom.

She found Cullen sitting on her bed, hands folded in his lap. He was clean, his shirt was fresh. And he was shaking.

"Cullen?" she asked softly, and he picked up his head to meet her gaze. His eyes were bloodshot with sleeplessness, and maybe something else, but whatever it was, she couldn't say.

She sat down next to him, close enough so that their shoulders touched. Eleanor averted her eyes, but he watched her all the while. "What's wrong?" she asked, feeling the shaking all through his body.

"I don't…" he shook his head. "It's a long story."

"I've got time," she offered, deigning to lift a hand and swing it around behind him. She placed it on his back and he flinched a bit, before easing against her touch. She watched his jaw clench and unclench, and he seemed to be fighting with himself physically and mentally both. "Here," she said, and got up, going to her nightstand to retrieve a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. Sometimes she smoked when she read, though she hadn't had much time to sit in bed and read lately. It was a dirty habit, somehow more so than just smoking, but it was comforting to her, to lie back on a lazy morning with a book and coffee and a cigarette and to arrange herself under the covers until she felt damn good and ready to face the day. She put one between her lips and lit it, taking a drag to get the ember going, and she held the smoke in her lungs as she passed the cigarette to the trembling Cullen. He looked at her, unsure at first, then took it from her, pinching it between his thumb and forefinger, and sucked in the smoke.

Eleanor exhaled and sat back down beside him as he breathed out, smoothly at first, then with a few dry coughs. Cullen squeezed his eyes shut, took a deep breath, and then took another, steadier pull from the cigarette before passing it back to Eleanor.

The commander stared straight ahead as he said, "I was a templar. It's the military branch of the Chantry; we watch over mages, we… make sure they're safe." She could tell he was choosing his words carefully. She knew a little bit about the Chantry and the Circles from Dorian, knew a little bit about mages and apostates and just what templars did to them, but she let him go on telling her what he needed to tell and nothing more. "When templars take their vows, they're given a philter - a draught of lyrium - which helps them - us - to focus our abilities, to help focus on an, an immutable reality. It's the very realness of that reality that keeps a mage from casting a spell." Eleanor passed the cigarette back to him, and he took it gratefully. He pulled off a long drag and caught the ash in his hand, reaching over to the nightstand to tip the ashes into the ashtray before wiping his hand on his jeans. He coughed a bit, and his words came faster now. "Templars become addicted to lyrium. The Chantry maybe knows this, I… don't know what to believe. They must know." He shook his head. "I haven't taken lyrium in seven years, and I still sometimes…" He stayed focused on the wall in front of him and let his eyes slip closed. Eleanor let him finish the cigarette in silence as the rain beat against the windows, sometimes quietly, sometimes with the force of a small gale when the wind picked up.

Leaning over, Cullen butted the cigarette in the ashtray, forced the last of the smoke out through his nose. "They'll burn the darkspawns' bodies tomorrow, if it's dry enough."

"What were you looking for on the corpses?" Eleanor asked.

The corner of Cullen's mouth tugged back and he said, "Something. Anything. I'm not sure what. Something that would tell me what a dozen darkspawn were doing heading this way so suddenly. I thought for sure," he said, then picked his hand up and dropped it in his lap, defeated. His trembling had diminished somewhat, and he stood, turning to face Eleanor who remained seated before him.

"We'll figure this out," he assured her. "I, ah," and he pointed at the door with his thumb. "I'm going to get some sleep. Finally."

"Good plan, Commander," said Eleanor, failing to stifle a yawn.

Cullen reached out and put a hand on her shoulder. "Ellie, thank you. I…" Something vague crossed his face as she looked up at him, and his eyebrows furrowed for just a second. He lifted his palm just an inch or two, just high enough to press it against her cheek. But just as quickly as he had brought it to her face, he drew it away and said, "I'm sorry. I'm tired," and he turned away, letting himself out into the hall and closing the door behind him.

Eleanor pushed the back of her hand to her cheek. His hand had been calloused, battle-hardened, rough. But it had also been warm. Frowning crookedly, she tossed the pack of cigarettes back into the nightstand drawer and banged it shut.

* * *

Eleanor awoke in a cold sweat.

She sat bolt upright in bed with a shout, convinced that for the second morning in a row she'd heard something, a pounding at her door, or something outside.

But there was nothing. Nothing at all, except Swiffer merooping at the door, a sound that would never normally have woken her up, and was probably caused by Eleanor's sudden shout, and not the other way around. Pressing her knuckles to her forehead, she slid her legs over the side of the bed and got up to allow the kitten admittance into her bedroom, leaving the door open a crack in case the cat wanted to leave again. She paused before she got back in bed to listen to the sounds of the house. It was still raining, more gently now, but otherwise, everything was quiet. She stood there another moment and heard only a few typical creaks and groans of the wood of the house itself shifting and stretching with the humidity. Nothing at all that might have woken her, nothing at all that could have woken her and perhaps not exhausted Dorian, certainly not just as tired but ever on-edge Cullen. No. It was only her.

Something, however, was lingering in the back of Eleanor's mind, something that wouldn't settle down as she crawled back under the blankets, Swiffer settling between Eleanor's knees. Had she had a dream? A nightmare? Eleanor hardly ever remembered her dreams and even when she did, they were usually nothing uncommon: stress dreams mostly, dreams of high school, dreams of her father's cancer, dreams where she couldn't remember her mother's face anymore. Nothing that woke her up with a jolt, just things that woke her up slowly with a bad taste in her mouth. But she couldn't shake it. There was something there, a feeling like someone, something, had reached out and touched her, not the physical her, but something deeper.

There was a dark feeling in the pit of her stomach, and she was suddenly grateful for the snuggling kitten at her legs. So grateful, in fact, that Eleanor reached down to grab the cat and, as Eleanor curled onto her side, she placed Swiffer along her chest so that she could feel the animal's warmth near her heart, her belly. Swiffer had started to protest, but seemed to sense that something was wrong, that her human needed her, and so the cat readjusted herself, nuzzling against Eleanor's ribs, little grey tail sliding under the blankets that lay just at Eleanor's hips.

"Love you, little kitty," Eleanor said softly to the grey ball of fluff. Swiffer only purred, but that was good enough. Within a few minutes, Eleanor felt herself drifting away. She didn't want to wake up until the sun shone through the curtains. After the past twenty-four hours, she felt like she more than deserved it.


	12. Something on Your Mind?

Due to the escalation in darkspawn activity, Eleanor suddenly found her home transformed into a bustling outpost for soldiers and spies. She felt as though it must be one of the best-kept secrets in the country - the world? - that all of these people from a land, a world, that was not her own were currently pouring in and fighting off an invader that rest of the world knew nothing about.

Well, most of the rest of the world.

She'd received a few surprising letters from what seemed to be her counterparts in other cities, states, countries, people whom Leliana had somehow gotten in with years ago, via her mysterious agents, and used as touchstones, contacts, to learn about this world, this reality. It was strange to read them, letters coming from places she recognized describing things that had not been a part of this world but had slowly - well, fairly quickly - become a part of her everyday life. She wondered if this all had been as weird for them as it had been for her, or if they'd somehow had some prior knowledge of the other world that seemed to lie millions of miles, but just a rift, away.

Sometimes Eleanor would lie awake at night and futily wonder if there were other worlds she might be able to jump to if she wanted, other lands she could get to through a rip in the sky. She wondered if maybe there were hundreds, or thousands, or hundreds of thousands; or, if, perhaps, these two, these places that had already met and the Fade that seemed to both separate and join them were the only ones at all, and that the rest of reality was just a quiet, empty place. She couldn't decide which of these potentials scared her more.

It was just one of the things that kept her up at night.

Eleanor didn't know what was causing the strange dreams she kept having, but each time she had one she felt like she could remember a little more than last time. She wasn't even sure if it was the same dream or if, upon waking, they each just felt a little bit like the last, in the way that dreams do. All she knew was that when she woke up, she felt stiff, crunched, and as though she hadn't really slept, and it wasn't just the fall air that was slowly creeping in that made her feel cold, made her shiver.

* * *

"How have you been sleeping?" she asked Cullen in what she thought was an entirely innocuous way. They were cleaning up from breakfast, Cullen drying the dishes and putting them as Eleanor washed. He knew the kitchen about as well as she did at this point; since the influx of soldiers had arrived, Cullen used his skills off of the battlefield more than on, and sometimes that meant helping with the dishes to help Eleanor retain her sanity. But he turned to Eleanor and smiled, so she figured he must not mind his more domestic role too terribly.

"Not bad at all," he said earnestly. "That bed is one of the softest things I've ever slept on."

"Good, good," Eleanor said, turning back to the sink.

As she reached for the sponge, Cullen swayed a bit and bumped his shoulder with hers. "Something on your mind, Ellie?"

She almost opened her mouth, almost told him, but a moment of doubt washed over her. They were just dreams, and she was more stressed than she had been in a very long time - possibly ever; all of her previous stressors had been personal. This was a much more global stress. Maybe it was nothing. It was probably nothing.

She shook her head and washed ketchup off of a white plate.


	13. Pavus Can be Talked Out of Nothing

Dorian sat on the porch that evening, a glass of wine in his hand. He looked out over the grass and onto the vast nothingness that followed it. Berries, soon to be harvested. The strawberries had already been picked - they had been delicious. The shed to the left, the barn just beyond that, and the beehives near by. Nothing to the right, except the road a mile or so off. Straight ahead, more nothing. If he squinted hard, he could just barely see the next house over, a speck in the distance. Or was that just a tree?

Eleanor swung the screen door open to join the mage, a cold glass of beer in her hand, cigarette pinched between two fingers.

"Evenin'," she said softly as she sat, and for a good long while that was the only word that passed between them as they watched the sun slowly set.

Then, suddenly, from Dorian, "What is there even to do around here?"

Eleanor set her glass down on the small wicker table and sat back. "Well," she said thoughtfully, "there's this bar we used to go to."

"Indeed," he said. "And..?"

She shrugged. "That's kind of it really. There's a movie theater, too, I mean, but that's closer to the shopping plaza. You'd have to go out to Bloomington or maybe Indianapolis before you hit much stuff to do." Which was fine by Eleanor. She liked the quiet. She thought after her father died she would pack up, sell everything, and move on. But she found she couldn't. She'd sold some of the larger farm equipment and a portion of the land, and she kept that money in her savings for a rainy day. But she liked the place too much. The memories in the house didn't haunt her so much as gently prod her. The work was never too hard since a lot of the seasonal laborers had really liked her dad and agreed to stay on even though there was less work to do now that she was planting fewer crops; there were plenty of farms around for them to make up the pay, and Eleanor always had always previously had a place for them to stay. It was different this year, when she regretfully had to tell them that there was just no more room; that she had had a group of friends come in from out of state - well, more than out of state, to be sure, but it wasn't a flat-out lie, just a half-truth - and that she had no work this year, what with the size of the land she worked evermore diminished... But the soldiers helped in the fields instead and helped her bring her offerings to the farmer's market. They were good, helpful folks, as long as they remembered never to mention anything about Thedas where they could be overheard, and of course, they never did. And she liked the quiet. She liked not being able to see another soul for days, weeks even. She liked walking for fifteen minutes and still being in a vast expanse of nothing. She liked having to drive a mile to a road that would take her ten more miles before she could get on a highway.

Dorian, on the other hand…

"Well, that's it then, we're off to the bar." He set down his glass and smoothed his black t-shirt, apparently waiting for Eleanor to jump up and grab her keys.

But she only stayed sitting in her seat, blinking slowly.

"Come on, then, Ellie!"

"I…" Well, she reasoned, she'd only had half a beer; she was fine to drive. Cullen and some of the soldiers had been learning slowly, mostly on the truck, and this wasn't the sort of place where anyone would pull you over for driving without a license on your own farmland. Or they could walk. It was a few miles, but it was all flat - much like everything here was flat - and the evening was warm, summer still hanging in the air from the heat of the day, even if was chilly by morning. She and her father used to bike there, even, and he would sneak her drinks until she turned twenty-one. Everyone knew. No one cared. Everyone knew each other - or had six years ago, the last time she was there.

But that was the problem. Everyone had known each other. And he she was, bringing one, maybe more than one, stranger to a bar that she hadn't been to in years. People would ask questions not just of her, but of them. Cullen maybe could handle it with his stern stoicism, but Dorian?

"I can't take you to a bar," she said, almost whining with the effort. "Not in a place like this."

Sticking out his full bottom lip in an impressive pout, the mage begged, "I promise to behave. Come on, Ellie. We've been here for months. And yes I know there's a very big serious sort of war thing going on, but you can't expect me just to sit here and watch the sun set every evening. Who knows how long we'll be here?"

Eleanor's lips grew thin. Either she would take him, or she would hear about it for weeks. She liked Dorian, liked him a lot. But he had a particular kind of personality that sometimes caused a sharp pain in the back of Eleanor's neck. It was right now. She clasped her hands behind her head and rubbed the edge of her hairline with her thumbs. Who knew how long indeed. It had been months, and no real moves had been made against the darkspawn. She knew she had no military experience; the most strategic she'd ever gotten was rotating crops. But she wondered what they were, what Cullen was, waiting for. Couldn't they just get more troops and charge in and knock out enough darkspawn? Was there something she was missing? Eleanor didn't want to interfere but there was a niggling suspicion at the back of her mind that there was something she wasn't being told. She sighed.

"Do you promise to keep your mouth shut? About all of this? Any of this?"

He gave her a stern look that said that he was offended that she would even think that about him.

She put up her hands defensively. "Alright, alright. But we're walking. Because it suddenly occurs to me that I need to get too drunk to drive."

"Shall I extend the invitation?"

"Can you make a dozen soldiers promise to also keep their mouths shut?"

"Eleanor, we're foreign. Not stupid. If Cullen had had his way, we wouldn't even have talked to you."

The thought was somehow not comforting, but she waved Dorian toward the barn and she herself went inside, calling up the stairs, "Cullen? You busy?"

Getting only a muffled response, she trudged to the upper level and knocked on the door.

"Come in," came the reply from inside.

She swung open the door and saw Cullen hunched over the little roll-top desk, reading a piece of parchment with a writing on it that she couldn't decipher. Even still, the commander quickly rolled it up and tucked it away. The action seemed to confirm Eleanor's suspicion that he was hiding something from her.

"We have chairs, you know," she said, motioning to such a piece of furniture mere feet from where the commander stood.

"I prefer to stand when I'm thinking," he said, rolling back his shoulders and walking to the doorway. "What's going on?"

"Dorian's coerced me into taking him to the bar - and yes, I already read him the riot act about keeping his mouth shut," she put up her hands and turned her face away as though to say that she tried. "Didn't know if you wanted to come."

Cullen shifted his weight from left to right, still a bit creaky from having hunched over the table. "Is this the best idea?" he said, but didn't sound very dedicated to the objection.

"Oh, almost definitely not. But there wasn't much of a way to stop him once he knew it was within walking distance. And he did raise a bit of a valid point, albeit incidentally. You guys are gonna have to participate in the real world sooner or later, aren't you? Or at least your people? Isn't that part of the plan?" She gave him something that wasn't a smile, was just the left side of face tugging up on her lips in a kind of fatalistic expression.

Putting his hands on his hips, Cullen's thumbs played nervously with the belt loops on his jeans. "Yes, but…"

"Not like this, I know. I tried to talk him out of it."

"Dorian Pavus can be talked out of nothing."

"Now you sound like him," Eleanor said, and with this she actually did smile. Between her ankles, Swiffer wove herself into the room, and Cullen bent forward to pick up the feline.

"Well," he said, drawing out each sound in the word as long as it would go as he gave the cat's grey tummy a little rub, "I suppose it couldn't hurt," and he used a voice that Eleanor didn't recognize, a sweet, almost cloying thing, as he pressed his face down toward the kitten's wet nose.

She furrowed her brows a bit and continued, "No, it absolutely could hurt, but it'll at least be contained if it does. Those people don't exactly stray far from home."

Swiffer squirmed and Cullen set the cat back down on her feet. The commander gave a little shrug. "I could use a drink."

"Alright. I'm gonna wash my face, and we'll head out. We're walking, so that'll give you plenty of time to chastise Dorian on the way. Meet you downstairs in five," she said turning with a little wave and she began to descend the stairs.

"It's a date," he said behind her.

Eleanor's step jolted a bit and she reached for the handrail in the stairway to steady herself, but she shook her head. Just an expression, just something he'd picked up on, she assured herself. He was adapting.


	14. Let's Go Have a Good Time

Adapting indeed, Eleanor thought as Cullen stomped down to the kitchen. He wore his same boots; he hadn't worn a different pair of shoes yet as far as she could tell, and the same dark grey-blue jeans. But over his t-shirt he wore a steely grey button up, which it was in name only as the commander wore it untucked and unbuttoned, and had the cuffs rolled up to his elbows.

Something caught in Eleanor's throat. She swallowed it down hard.

Eleanor wasn't stupid or unseeing or celibate, and she was at least seventy-five percent heterosexual. Alright, maybe sixty percent, give or take. She wouldn't stand up and say that Cullen was an unattractive man. He had good bone structure, and dark, deep-set eyes, and his hair was unruly in a way that some might construe as handsome. The greys made him look dignified. The scar on his lip was striking. His voice, dare she admit it, was butter-melting.

But nothing about him had done it for her before. If anyone was gonna do it for her, it would be a man like Dorian, and nothing about her did it for him, she had found out some time ago. She should have figured as much.

Something about the scarred war veteran standing before her now though made her cheeks flush, what with his sleeves rolled up and his hands in his pockets and his hair sticking out at odd angles though he'd clearly tried to brush it back.

"Well alright then let's get going," she said without punctuation, aware that she was behaving more like an eight-year-old than a twenty-eight year old. But she turned away from his strong jaw with distrust. She grabbed a small sling-style purse from the back of a kitchen chair, made sure it contained money, cigarettes, and keys, and set off.

"Everything okay?" Cullen asked as Eleanor's feet traced the wood floor to the front of the house.

"Fine," she said, and nudged open the screen door with her shoulder. Dorian and four of their current occupancy of a dozen or so soldiers waited for them on the porch.

"Commander," Dorian bobbed his head to Cullen, who gave Dorian a roll of his eyes, to which Dorian returned a wink, more for Eleanor's sake than Cullen's.

"Well, then," said the mage, "let's go have a good time."

The walk to the bar was long but peaceful, and the shifting light of the setting sun eased the tension in Eleanor's nerves as Dorian walked alongside her and rattled on about magic. She'd asked him to, often asked him to, and he was more than glad to oblige, perhaps because he liked to impart information, or perhaps because he liked the sound of his own voice, and Eleanor figured it was more than likely both. She didn't mind, but in the otherwise farmland-silent twilight, she could hardly focus on the words at all. The things that grabbed her attention were the sounds of bullfrogs croaking out their goodnights, of birds fluttering down to settle on the branches of trees, of the occasional gust of wind that rustled the long grass that grew on both sides of the road. Her eyes were drawn not to his face but to the twinkling of the last fireflies of the year and the first stars of the evening. Eventually, the mage realized that Eleanor's attention was elsewhere - literally anywhere elsewhere - and he quieted a bit, allowing her to point out constellations above them, Orion and Draco and the two Dippers. Apparently the stars were different here than they were in Thedas, and this, for whatever reason, sent a small shiver of fear down Eleanor's spine, but also a thrill. It was bigger than there being another land, another world out there to be discovered, or, having been discovered in this small way, to explore. There was a whole other sky, a whole other galaxy around them, above them, and here on Earth, Dorian was exploring it for the first time as he in turn told her about a sky which she had never seen; not a different perspective, but a different heaven entirely. She reasoned that maybe Thedas was another planet somewhere out there, somewhere else, and that it was so far from her home that even though it looked at the same stars their orientations were completely differently aligned. That felt more reasonable, safer, and yet, she wouldn't have put money on it.

But then, she wouldn't have put money on having visitors from a place where the stars were different.

Cullen walked behind them, listening. He watched as Eleanor's index finger traced out shapes in the sky, drawing pictures with the stars like he had done on his own, with his unaided eye like they were doing now, and with the occasional aid of astrariums. He didn't put much if any stock into those stars, so cold and distant, having a pull, an influence on his life, but he liked the lore all the same. Down here, listening to Eleanor, the stories she told about the shapes in the sky seemed to mirror his own experience, his own mythology, but with just enough inconsistency to keep his attention. A gentle breeze lifted the hem of his shirt, rustled his hair, kissed his cheeks, and as his boots crunched the gravel on the road below them, he felt for a moment entirely content. He felt like he could stay here forever.

But he never could. He rolled his shoulders and sighed to himself, realizing that at some point there would be activity from the Archdemon, and then they would have to bring the Grey Wardens here, to this completely other place, and with any luck they could slay the beast, end the Blight, close the Breach, and Cullen would go home.

Home.

Back to Thedas.

Home?

"There it is," he heard Eleanor say, and she pointed horizontally now, not vertically, at a building he would have thought was just a house, and quite possibly had been at sometime or other, and a soldier walking ahead gave a little whoop and quickened her pace.

"Behave," Eleanor warned with a lightness in her voice that said she was really quite glad to be out of the house, all dubiousness aside. The soldiers laughed the boisterous, communal laugh of people who knew that life was short and headed in a pack of four towards the neon lights of the bar signs that flickered now in the gloaming. Dorian followed them in a pack all his own.

Cullen caught up to Eleanor now, stretching his arms out after having had his hands stuffed in his pockets. "Buy you a drink?" he offered.

She patted her purse. "Technically you're buying all of these drinks."

He gave a chuckle. "Well, now. When you put it that way."

Eleanor flashed him a small smile, the uneasiness he had caused her having settled down after their long walk, and she broke from his stride again, heading towards the bar.

Home. The word flashed in his mind again, and he realized at some point he would have to tell her about the dragon.

He heard the sound of laughter and music and clinking glasses coming from the open patio on the building in front of him, and decided he could tell her tomorrow. Soon, certainly. But it didn't have to be tonight.


	15. I'll Have What You're Having

By the time he strolled in, she had claimed a table on the patio. There was room for four, but she was the only one seated at it. Dorian had claimed a place at the bar, at least for now, pursuing a drinks menu and a small cooler full of craft beers, his eyes darting between the list and the fridge and the taps lined up behind the bar. He looked intent, so Cullen walked past him and went out onto the patio to the table where Eleanor sat alone. She had nicked an ashtray from a nearby table and was fishing her cigarettes out of her purse. Pulling out the chair opposite her, he sat with a thud.

Their spot was in the corner, furthest away from the lights of the bar. The table next to them was empty, but the two next to that had occupants, two at one table, six at another. Inside, there were a few people clustered around the bar watching some sort of sporting event on large televisions - televisions that still unnerved Cullen for reasons he couldn't quite articulate - and Dorian and the soldiers had hung back, staying inside as well, some at the bar, some at the few small booths that lined one wall of the place. And that was all there was. It was a small place, but well-appointed; rich dark woods and soft cushions on the seats, and Cullen took comfort in the fact that at least some things were the same here as they were in Thedas. If the drinks were cold and the beer was dark, it would be par for the course.

Eleanor had lit her cigarette and took a long drag from it before offering it to Cullen. He was picking up the habit; instinctively he hated it, was reminded too much of the lyrium he had been so dependent on, but it was soothing, it gave him something to do with his hands when they had no other task, gave him something to do with his mouth when words were hard or unnecessary. Eleanor had made it very clear that it was not healthy, that it was not as socially acceptable as it had once been, but those were the least of his concerns. He never bought his own, only thieved one now and then from Eleanor's fingers, and she always gave them willingly. He took it from her now, his knuckles bumping hers, and whatever tension there had been between them back at the house was overturned as she breathed out smoke and he breathed it in. The air out here was cool and fresh; a chill was settling in and Eleanor pulled down the previously shoved-up sleeves of her flannel, asking, "What are you drinking?"

"I'll have what you're having," he said with a mouthful of blue haze.

"Good answer," she smiled, and slung the strap of her purse over her chair. "Watch my things?" It was a question but she didn't wait for an answer, only stood and went for the door that readmitted her to the bar proper. Of course he would watch her things.

He would probably do anything she asked of him.

The thought crossed his mind of its own volition, and he set the cigarette down, rubbing the bridge of his nose with index finger and thumb. It was a ridiculous thought, for more reasons than one. First off, of course he would; she was not the kind to ask anything unreasonable. She asked for what she needed, almost never even what she wanted, nothing so base as wanting. She took care of her own wants and requested only assistance with things she could not do alone, things she would not even have to concern herself with if the Inquisition had not broadly commandeered her land. And second, he would absolutely not. That was ridiculous. Would he jump off of a bridge if she asked him to? Indeed not.

But he might just jump if she asked.

Cullen rolled his eyes at himself and reached again for the cigarette, seeking comfort in its nicotine calm and in the next moment, Eleanor had elbowed open the patio door, a mud-dark beer in either hand.

"Dorian's causing a stir," she said, but with a flatness of voice that implied that there was no real trouble.

"I should expect as much. What is it this time?"

"Oh, the usual. Being handsome. Having an accent. He'll have to bat the ladies off with a fly swatter."

"Won't they be disappointed," Cullen said with a smirk.

"And how," Eleanor agreed, "but looks like there's a gentleman in there who won't be," and she peered back through the glass of the door with a conspiratorial grin.

He grinned with her, but a part of him frowned at her declaration of his cohort's relative attractiveness. It was true, when it came to looks Dorian didn't leave much wanting, unless one wasn't into the tall, dark, and handsome type. Without thinking, Cullen reached up to self-consciously smooth his coarse, kinky hair, flecked with grey, ran his hand down to scratch his stubble.

"Why so pouty?" Eleanor asked, setting down her beer and wiping the foam from her lip with the back of her hand, and Cullen realized the grin had slipped off of his face. "If you wanted a chance with him, I'm sure you've had plenty of opportunities."

The commander rolled his eyes at the suggestion and butted the spent cigarette, bringing the frothy black beer up from the table and taking a long drink.

It was cold and dark.

Cullen closed his eyes against the taste, and in his mind he again conjured up the idea of home.

* * *

At the table once removed from their own, Eleanor listened to a young man and a woman in what could only be described as superficial conversation. She stole a quick glance over her shoulder to sneak a peek at them, and from their body language it was clear the couple didn't know each other well. Perhaps a first or second date. She heard the young man go on about his family for a bit, the woman interjecting agreement or dissent here and there, before she opened up first about her own home life, and then about work.

For them, she cringed.

"Dating sucks," she said out loud, though she mostly meant it for herself. She hadn't seen anyone seriously since before her father died; she'd had two serious relationships, one that lasted through all of college which ended amicably when they each graduated, and one just after that which lasted barely a year and a half and ended with tears and shouting and one thrown shoe. After her father's passing she found herself content to be alone, to socialize via the wonderful world of the web, and she'd had a few online flings but nothing where either party wanted to take things to the next level, and for that, she was glad. She liked getting to know people, it wasn't that. But there was something about getting to know someone with the intent of - what? Marriage? Fucking? - that made dating so painful, gut-wrenchingly awkward. She'd never dated anyone she hadn't already known as a friend - her college boyfriend she'd known for years beforehand - and Eleanor didn't know how anyone could. Hello perfect stranger, she thought, let me try to get to know you that we may spend the rest of our lives together even though neither of us know if we had a damned thing in common. She sighed and chugged the rest of her beer in solidarity with the young woman who had now been edged out of her own portion of the conversation by the young man who had lost all notion of the word 'brevity.' No, Eleanor found herself rather pleased with the notion of becoming a cat lady, even if she only had the one cat.

When she lifted her eyes from her now-drained glass, however, she found Cullen's brown eyes locked on her, lines of concern marking the commander's face.

"Someone kick your dog?" she asked, and the expression faltered, but did not fade. Instead he tipped his head toward the pair a table away and said to her sadly, "That's going nowhere."

Eleanor's face cracked into a grin. "That's about what I was thinking."

"Seems we're on the same page."

She bobbed her head in agreement. "S'nice." Eleanor looked again at her drained pint, then started, "I never asked you if -" but as though she had not said the words at all, she cut herself off, stood, snatched up her glass, and asked, "Get you another?"

He took the last swallow from his own pint and handed the empty glass to her in answer.


	16. I Apologize in Advance for Myself

Eleanor sidled up to the bar where there was an empty space, and she set the two glasses down on its smooth, wooden surface waiting for the bartender to have a free moment to repeat her order. She didn't recognize the young man who was pulling the taps; the last time she had been her it had been Mary, a friend of her father's from years back. But she supposed that, even if she were still here, and she very well might be, that she had to have a night off every once in a while. The crowd was small, and she had been a bartender for years and years; perhaps they scheduled her on nights that were busier, since she had more experience. For right now, though, she propped herself half on and half off of a bar stool, one foot still planted firmly on the ground for support, and Eleanor found her eyes drifting slowly up to the screens where the football game was being played. The action was interrupted by a commercial, and Eleanor's brow furrowed as she tried to suss out the advertisement being aimed at her without the aid of sound.

Behind her, a silky voice asked of her, "I need a favor."

Eleanor turned slowly, having recognized the cadence of the voice from its first syllable. "What's up, Dorian?"

He reached over her shoulder, his front pressed against her back, and continued speaking against her ear, "Do you see those young ladies over there?"

Eleanor caught sight of a pair of women huddling together near where Dorian had at first been sitting. "Mm," she answered.

"Apparently, 'I'm not interested in women' isn't a good enough answer for persistent, inebriated members of the female species."

She knew exactly what he meant. "I can go talk to them."

"No," he said, resting the hand that was pointing gently on her shoulder. "Anissa already tried. But she didn't want to start a fight, so she backed down."

"They seriously won't take 'I'm gay' for an answer?"

"Apparently they think they can convince me otherwise," he said with bemusement in his lilting voice. "I didn't want to tell them that others had already tried, lest it encourage them further."

"Well, what do you want me to do?" she asked, turning her head awkwardly to try and meet his eyes, but he remained firm in his almost embracing stance.

Dorian now tipped his head to meet her sideways gaze. "I want you to kiss me."

Eleanor gave him a dead-eyed look, before asking flatly, "How much have you had to drink?"

He turned a bit so that his body was now pressed against her left arm. "I'm not kidding. If telling them I don't want them won't work, maybe telling them I want someone else will. Even if it's a lie. Not that I wouldn't - I mean - you're perfectly lovely -"

Eleanor rolled her eyes. "Make Micah do it," she indicated one of the three young men who had come to the bar with them, one of the soldiers she knew better since he'd helped her harvest strawberries on a day back in August.

"I wouldn't ask that of him. And it might just instigate the women further."

Slumping with a sigh, she countered, "Well then make Annisa do it."

"I tried, believe me. But it seems as though she'd be more interested in you than me." He blinked and turned his gaze back to the four soldiers at the bar, and the two women who were clearly waiting for him to return. "And she has a sword."

"Well, not with her."

"I have a gun!"

"Well, not with you."

Sighing, Eleanor pushed Dorian away gently.

The bartender came to the other side of the bar and pointed at Eleanor's two empty glasses with a smile. She nodded and said over the sound of the music, "And it looks like I'm going to need a shot of Jack. You know what, make it a double." The young man nodded and took her glasses away, clinking down a double shot glass and turning around quickly to grab the bottle from behind the bar and flipping it over to pour it into the tiny glass. He did it with a bit of a flourish and slid the shot closer to Eleanor. She took it and slammed it down, making a pinched face as she replaced the empty glass and lolled her head from left to right to left again.

"Alright." she said, and reached up, grabbing the back of his head with her left hand and grabbing him around the waist with her right. Eleanor pulled him to face her and with one succinct yank, she forced his mouth against hers.

Dorian resisted at first but only out of surprise before opening his lips gently and going in for the kill. He reached up to press his hands against her back, her skin warm through her shirt. He tasted the whisky on her lips and didn't mind at all.

Eleanor made a fist with her left hand, taking his hair between her fingers and tipping her head to get a better purchase on his mouth. If she were going to do this, she was going to do it right. She used the angle of her head opposing his to take a peek behind him and see if the girls were watching. Boy, were they ever. How could they not be, Eleanor thought, as she let her eyes slip closed again. Dorian's lips were full and soft and hungry and tasted vaguely fruity - maybe he'd been drinking wine, but she hadn't noticed - and the whole experience was not unpleasant, she had to admit.

When Eleanor felt she'd gone on long enough to be convincing, she loosed her grasp on his waist, his hair, and slowly broke away from his mouth, but he kept his nose close to hers, his eyes still shut, and he breathed out a deep, satisfied breath against her lips.

"Well," he said softly, just loud enough to be heard over the din of the bar, "that's one way to do it."

Her lips pursed into a smile and she pressed them to his again, just for an instant, before she lifted her right hand to twiddle her fingers at the onlookers, grabbed her beers, and left.

* * *

Cullen had seen the whole thing. What he hadn't done, however, was overhear the conversation that lead to the display of affection the two at the bar, two people he thought he had pegged, and definitely had trusted.

The air around him felt shockingly cold now, and he rolled down his sleeves and hugged his shirt shut as Eleanor came once again onto the patio. He didn't speak to her or thank her as she set the rich brown beer before him.

"Well," she said, apparently unphased by his silence, "that was weird."

"I should say so," he said with a huff, "What in Andraste's bleeding name was that?"

Eleanor sensed an irritation in his voice, an irritation that was miles away from the blinding - and senseless - rage that Cullen was feeling.

"Dorian was being harassed by some young ladies at the bar so I'm apparently pretending to be his girlfriend tonight to let him drink in peace."

And just like that, all the rage was sucked away from him. "He didn't tell them he wasn't interested?"

"They apparently accepted it as a challenge instead of a refusal."

Cullen blinked, and wrapped his hand around his cold beer, the heat of embarrassment warming up the formerly frigid night air of what he had mistaken for rejection.

Rejection?

Ah, he thought to himself. There it is.

So he did the only thing he knew how to do. He picked up his beer, and drank it down, draining half of it in just a few swallows. He didn't know what to do now. If he told her what he had felt, then he would by extension be forced to admit his feelings for her. If he kept it silent, so be it, but just how long would he keep his mouth shut? Until she gave him a sign? Should he wait for her to make the first move? Should he not say anything at all? They were, after all, working together. They were effectively living together. And while having a relationship in that circumstance might be its own sort of domestic bliss, if she did reject him, or if they ended it later, he might be stuck in Indiana for Maker knows how long, living off of her kindness, a kindness he didn't know would last in the event of an emotional split. But, he reasoned, he could always just live in the barn with his troops. He would only have to see her… Well, almost every day, really, to keep her abreast of their movements and discoveries, of any darkspawn activity, and if and when the Archdemon showed itself and the Grey Wardens were summoned it would probably be a constant back and forth of information and planning, of resupplying and maybe even eventual relocation. And if they did stay together, what would happen when he had to go back to Thedas? Would she come? Leave her whole life behind? Ostensibly they would breach the Veil as little as little as possible - maybe even never again - once this whole Blight situation was resolved. Or maybe they would leave the rift on the farm open, a doorway to sister world. Regardless, he would not use it for his own personal means, certainly not. A long-distance relationship was out of the question. Was it worth the risk? Was any of it worth the risk?

And here he was, worrying about the long term when he didn't even know if she felt anything for him. What if she felt nothing? She didn't seem to mind his closeness, his obvious friendship to the point of favoritism. She never asked him for space, never minded when he reached for her hand to steal her cigarette. Was it just closeness fostered by a common enemy? Was it just that he had given her no reason to object to him? Did his concerns, his fears, even really matter?

As if in answer, she picked herself up from the chair she had been sitting in, the one opposite him at the table, and sat herself down in the chair next to him instead, their bodies separated now only by the ninety degree angle that was the table's corner. She had a cigarette in her fingers - she must have lit it while he was lost in thought - and she leaned into him conspiratorially.

"Cullen," she said, and he liked the sound of his name in her mouth, "I'm going to tell you something."

He bit the inside corner of his lip and smiled. "Go on, then."

Eleanor pointed falteringly back toward the bar. "I had a few shots in there. At once. It's Dorian's fault, it really is." She clutched her beer in one hand and brought the cigarette to her lips with the other. Breathing out the smoke, she said, "This may cause me to tell you a few more things once it hits my system."

He suspected gently that it already had.

"I apologize in advance," she went on, "for… myself." She licked her lips, and reached out her hand to him. "Cigarette?"

Grinning, Cullen's eyes drifted from the slowed sparkle in her eyes to the flush on her cheeks to the cigarette in her hand. He sighed, daring to close his hand around hers just a second longer than he normally would. "Please." Maker, but her eyes were so blue.

Eleanor opened her mouth to say something, but flicked her eyes away, her tongue probing idly at the spaces behind her teeth as she put her thoughts together, or tried to. When she turned her gaze back to him, she said only, "You look good in that shirt." And, after a pause, "I don't want to be the drunkest one here. I'm gonna buy you a shot or seven."

He laughed, finally taking the cigarette away from her, and tipped his chin toward the bar. "Hurry back."

Her question, "You drink whisky?" was a promise that she would.


	17. Anytime, Except for Ever Again

"Back so soon?" said Dorian as Eleanor found herself waiting at the bar again. She hoped that this would be the last time she would find herself away from Cullen for a little while, so when the young bartender asked her, "Two more?" she accepted before asking for the second shot. She would stock up now though she'd hardly touched the beer she'd come inside for last time and be able to stay outside with Cullen for a while longer than she had yet. She liked being close to him, liked being alone with him, and while she knew there was alcohol coursing through her veins and speeding up the natural course of her emotions, strengthening them even as it did, she wasn't sure she minded terribly. After all, he did look good in that shirt. And the way he'd laid his hand across hers in a way she thought he hoped she wouldn't notice implied that he thought she looked rather good in hers as well. And, she laughed as she thought, perhaps he thought she would look good out of it. Normally Eleanor would cold-cock a man in the mouth for thinking such things about her - when she could tell, of course, or when he was stupid enough to say so - but Cullen had been, after all, living in her upstairs rooms for months now and had not made so much as a move. If she was reading him right, she didn't think she should cold-cock him so much as give him a trophy for his restraint. If she was reading him wrong, then Eleanor got the feeling that she was drunk enough to find out tonight. Though a part of her doubted that it was the alcohol at all. She thought perhaps it was just the right time, and the right place, and the kiss she had given Dorian had ignited something inside of her, not for the mage, no, but a sort of vague tingling all through her body that she longed to indulge. Cullen, she decided as she waited for her drinks, would not be the worst person to indulge it with, if, of course, he would indulge her.

"Hopefully for the last time," she answered Dorian.

He reached out and took her hand, in plain enough view of the rest of the bar that he thought it might partly be for show, but in such a tender way that she sensed there was something more behind it as he said, "I would be remiss if I didn't say I hoped so too." He nodded her head toward the two girls from whom she had tried to rescue him, and saw them now consorting with three of the young men who had been sitting on the opposite side of the bar, engrossed in the football game.

"What's going on over there?" she asked softly.

"Well," he said, drawing the word out, and as if on queue, one of the women pointed around the heads of the soldiers they stood behind and straight at Eleanor.

"Oh, Dorian. What have you gotten us into."

"What would you have had me do?"

"Stay at home, for one thing."

"Ah." He let her hand go.

The bartender presented her with two more glasses and the tall shot, and Eleanor reached down to tuck one of the beers under her arm so that she could carry the other and the shot glass in her hands.

"May I help you with that?" he offered apologetically.

"No, it's alright, really," and she turned slowly, keeping her eyes on the drinks in her grasp, only to look up into the eyes of one of the girls who had expressed interest in Dorian.

Eleanor rolled her eyes and sighed.

"He belong to you?"

"Well, he's a human being, so no."

The girl stared back blankly, clearly not in on Eleanor's meaning. Dorian nudged Eleanor in the ribs, nearly making her spill the beer tucked against her side.

"Yes he's my boyfriend," she said dully.

"Then who's that for?" she indicated the drinks in Eleanor's grasp. The girl crossed her arms over her blue tank top, grinning as though she had just won the game.

"My boss," Eleanor answered, and it wasn't as much of a lie as her previous statement had been. Something about that realization in the wake of all of her other small epiphanies that evening made her nose crinkle.

"Oh." She paused, then put her hands on her hips, turning back to the other girl, and the three men with him. They almost mirrored the four soldiers who were now taking no small notice of the exchange. The other girl mouthed something to her more confrontational friend, and she turned around to ask Eleanor, "I thought he said he was gay."

"Well, he's mostly gay." She heard Dorian chuckle behind him. Dorian wasn't mostly anything. He didn't do anything by halves. "I mean, I'm only mostly straight. And anyway," Eleanor went on, feeling indignant and inebriated now, and with the drinks in her hands only wanting to be done with this conversation so that she could continue to become further inebriated in the company of an entirely different person, "this is the twenty-first century. Sexual orientation is a fluid thing." She stopped before "we're here, we're queer, get over it."

The girl didn't back down, only stood firm.

"Oh, this is ridiculous," she said, turning to Dorian. "Defend your own damn self."

"But I -" Dorian started, but Eleanor took a step forward to move away. And then the girl put out her hand and pushed Eleanor against the chest, a bit of beer sloshing out of both glasses and onto her shirt. It was dark blue, but the wet patches were immediately noticeable even in the dim light of the bar.

Eleanor's eyes narrowed. "Oh. You don't want to do that."

"Oh yeah? What are you gonna do about it?"

The Inquisition soldiers stepped forward, each staring down one of the opposing party. From Dorian, a ripple of ozone filled the room, the threat of magic ripe in the air. He was under express orders not to do any spellcasting, but Eleanor could tell from the looks on the faces of the five that the could sense something. The girl backed away a few steps. She wondered what it felt like to them, these people who didn't know of magic. She tried to imagine what it would have felt like for her if Eleanor had not been told from the start what it was. But it didn't matter. She had a clear path to the door, and she took it. She had bigger fish to fry.

* * *

Cullen hadn't touched his beer since Eleanor had left, she noticed. He held the extinguished cigarette between his fingers still, seemingly lost in thought. There was a tinge of chill on the air, and Eleanor wondered idly if, assuming she could still stand straight after the two drinks that she now had before her, the bartender would humor her with something warm to drink. A hot toddy or something. Then again, after the two drinks in front of her, she might be warm enough all on her own.

"You know, you're allowed to have your own fucking cigarette," she said with a laugh, and presented him the shot with a bow. He took it gingerly, brought it to his lips, and swallowed it down in one expert gulp.

Coughing gently against the burn, he said, "I'll take you up on that."

She sat and reached for her purse, which had slipped to the floor beside her chair. From it she withdrew two more cigarettes and a different lighter, an old-fashioned affair, one that she would have to refill from time to time with lighter fluid. It had been her dad's, like most of the nicer things that she owned, and she couldn't bring herself to use it every day, like most of the things he had left behind, things she had boxed up and put in the attic and would occasionally rummage through when she needed to have a good cry. But this was a special occasion.

Eleanor handed the Zippo over to Cullen and watched him light it, watched his hands, knuckles thick in a way that implied strength, the callouses thick and rough on the pad of his right hand. She wondered if that was where his sword rubbed the most. The pommel? she wondered hazily. He handed the lighter back to her and she lit her own cigarette.

"It's called the pommel, right?"

His head jerked back slightly and he cocked an eyebrow at her.

"The part of the sword that you… like, hold."

He offered her a smile, "The grip. The pommel is the bit at the end of the grip."

"Do you… hit people with it?"

Cullen laughed. "You can."

She shook her head.

"What is it?"

Eleanor shrugged, running one finger around the edge of her glass. It made a dull humming sound. She thought maybe if she circled faster, it would sing. "That's just… not something I thought I would ever need to know."

"Well," he granted, taking a puff of his smoke, "you don't really need to know it now, I suppose."

She bobbed her head from side to side in tentative agreement. "Then, I guess I'd never thought I'd have someone to ask. Or even be motivated to ask, really."

"I'll give you that one." He took a drink and then asked, "What made you think of it at all?"

"Your hands," she answered, as though that was all the explanation he would need, but his look of bewilderment signalled to her that he didn't understand. "Your callouses," she tried again. "They're different on your right hand."

Holding the cigarette in pinched fingers, he turned his palms up and examined them. "You're right, they are."

"You never noticed before?"

He shrugged and pulled his lips tight in a quick gesture. "I guess not."

She shook her head with a smile, and her hazelnut hair tumbled from one shoulder to the other. "What am I going to do with you, Cullen?" she asked playfully, and took a long drink from her glass, draining the first and setting the cup aside.

"Oh, I can think of a few things," he said boldly.

She froze for an instant, then slowly set her cigarette down in the ashtray, her face suddenly betraying nothing. Cullen's stomach dropped and his heart leapt into his throat. He threw up his hands defensively, trying to take it back. "I didn't - I don't -"

He fell silent when she tipped herself forward as far as the table between them would let her, and she reached out her hand to his cheek, brushing his stubble with the tips of her fingers. "Not yet you didn't," she countered his own sputtering objections, and a wry smile split across her face.

The relief in Cullen was instantly palpable. The breath he released seemed to take the tightness in his whole frame with it and his eyelids fluttered as his face sunk forward against her hand. He reached out and took her slender wrist, pushing her palm to his lips, kissing the heel of her hand hard, his eyes closed, cigarette still clutched in his opposite fingers, holding it carefully away from her skin. Eleanor watched him, watched his face change, and suddenly he seemed a different man, or a much younger one at the very least. The lines of tension, of worry, released their grip on his forehead; the inverted V that stretched from his nose to his chin shallowed and smoothed, and despite his grasp, she turned her hand over and rubbed the backs of her fingers against his cheek, the corner of his mouth.

"Blessed Andraste," he breathed against her fingertips.

"Hallowed be her name," Dorian said from just past the patio door.

Cullen dropped Eleanor's hand as though it were hot and she drew it quickly against her chest, reaching out for her cigarette in the ashtray before her. The warmth of her buzz seemed to ebb away and she reached for her second beer, which she remembered now was her third. She welcomed it.

"Pavus," Cullen growled with more venom than might have been necessary.

Unconcerned, Dorian pulled out the chair that Eleanor had at first sat in. In his hand he was swirling a glass of wine. "You might be happy to know that those two women have deemed me no longer worth their trouble and seem to have left the bar. Your proud troops stared down the menfolk until they at least left our corner to grumble the night away in a corner all their own."

"Wonderful," remarked Eleanor, staring into her beer, sliding her eyes up and to the left to meet Cullen's own. Though there was disappointment on his face, when his gaze met hers his eyes brightened with conspiratorial pleasure.

Cullen took a hit from his cigarette. "Does that mean it's safe for you to go back inside?"

"Commander, you wound me," Dorian pouted sarcastically. "Anyway, Eleanor, I just wanted… to thank you. I hadn't meant to put you in that position."

"What position?" Cullen asked, adding to himself, The one where you pressed yourself against her? But he knew it was a worthless thought, given the circumstances.

Eleanor rolled her eyes. "Bitch wanted to start shit with me when I went back inside."

Dorian snickered into his glass at her bluntness. "In so many words," he agreed.

Cullen's eyes narrowed, and Eleanor saw his expression shift.

"Oh, don't," she warned him off. "It was nothing I couldn't handle. I'm just mad she made me spill my drink," she reached out and pulled her shirt away from her body, the two wet patches of beer fading even now, though the damp spots were cold against her skin in the night air, which grew ever crisper as the evening wore on. "Bitch," she murmured once more under her breath.

"Well then," said Dorian, standing now, "I just wanted to let you know it was safe inside. And, again... thank you."

"Anytime," said Eleanor, raising her glass to him, "except for ever again. Ever."

He laughed and turned her back on them, holding his now-empty wine glass by the stem.

Cullen cleared his throat, but the moment was gone. Instead of trying to reclaim it, he only reached out now to grasp Eleanor's hand, squeezing it tightly. Her cheeks turned pink only now and she looked away from him.

"Would it be wrong to say that I'm ready to go when you are?" he asked.

She shook her head. "I think I've had enough excitement for one night."

"Have you?"

Oh, he was good at this, she thought to herself.


	18. What are You People?

They stayed out on the patio until their drinks were empty and it was too cold to sit still in the evening air any longer. Cullen lead Eleanor back inside with his arm draped over her shoulder, and she excused herself to the ladies' room while Cullen went to meet up with the rest of their group.

The restrooms were down a narrow hallway, the ladies' at the far end of the squeezed space. When she left, drying her hands on her jeans, looking at her feet as she went, she bumped into a large object blocking her path.

It was a man.

"I know you, don't I?" he asked.

"Maybe?" she asked, squinting her eyes in the dim light. She normally didn't need her glasses to see up this close, but something about the way the light from the bar filtered into the dark little space made it almost impossible to make out any features on the man's face.

"You're from the Redgrove place. Eleanor? I think we went to highschool together. John Manning."

The name sounded familiar, sure. But that didn't mean much. Everyone in three counties had gone to the same high school; there weren't enough school-aged kids to necessitate more than one building, even if it meant some of the students had to travel an hour to get to and from home each day. She was right then; she knew she would run into someone she knew. She was just glad that she didn't know him better. And that no one had given any of the other bar patrons much to talk about. "Yeah, that's me. Sorry, I was just on my way out -" she tried to squeeze past him but she put a hand on her shoulder.

"Don't think so," he said, and his voice took on a serious tone.

"Excuse me?"

"I think we have to have a little chat about what you said to Missy."

Missy? Who the hell was Missy? Wait - the girl who tried to make a move on Dorian? "How about fuck you both?" she offered and tried to shove past him again, but he didn't relent, and the space wasn't wide enough for her to even begin to squeeze past.

"Not so tough without your boyfriend, are you?"

Eleanor sighed deeply. "Look, John," she said his name with emphatic disgust. "He really isn't my boyfriend. I promise. But he really is gay and just wanted to have a night out in peace. Tell Missy I'm sorry, but Dorian just isn't into chicks. Not even me. Huge shocker, I know." She took a step past to see if he would allow her passage now that all of her cards were on the table.

"So you don't have a boyfriend?"

She squeezed shut her eyes. She thought maybe she did, after the rushed conversation - not even really a conversation - she'd just had with Cullen. Maybe a potential boyfriend. What an awful word, boyfriend, she thought. "No, I do," she tried to point past him, "but he's the blond one -"

He grabbed her extended wrist. "That so?"

She tried to yank away but John held strong. "Yes, it is, and I'd like to go home with him now, thanks," she said through gritted teeth. She wasn't making progress but she was holding her ground.

"You kiss a lot of men you ain't dating?" he asked, a wetness in his voice.

She could have said a lot of things but none of them would have been kind to herself or to Dorian so Eleanor remained resolute in her silence, testing his grip with another jerk of her arm, but his fingers remained locked around her wrist.

"You realize I could just call for them, right? Those people are soldiers."

"Don't look like any soldiers I've ever seen."

"Yeah, and you should be fuckin' glad for that," she told him, and the comment seemed to take John off-guard, just long enough for her to rip her wrist free of his grasp. She made a move for the end of the hallway but she was too slow; he used his whole body to slam Eleanor into the wall she was squeezing against.

"I don't fucking think so," he said to her, pinning her there and bringing his face within inches of hers.

There was a second of absolute blankness that flashed through Eleanor, and in a shuddering moment, something started to well up inside of her. It felt like anger, it felt like pain, but it felt like so many other things - like power and light and freedom, and from her lips came the strained sound of her voice as the feeling pushed through her whole body, forced and forceful all the same.

"Well I do!" she growled and from her - from all of her, from her skin, from her mouth, from her very neurons - exploded a shockwave of whiteness, of force, and John was pushed out of the hallway and onto his knees.

* * *

The light faded and Eleanor braced herself against the wall with both hands to stop herself from fainting, from throwing up. She pressed her forehead against the cool wood, now unable to leave the narrow, dark space she had tried to hard to escape only seconds before. From the far side of the bar rushed Cullen and Dorian, the commander reaching out his arms to Eleanor, and she gratefully collapsed into them, pointing a trembling finger at John as she gasped, "That fucker needs to leave," her voice harsh as though the sound itself had been burnt.

"Eleanor, what -" Cullen began, but Dorian cut him off.

"How did that happen?"

Leaning against Cullen, Eleanor tried to walk over to the bar, taking small, weak steps, but directing the much stronger, larger Cullen all the same. She reached into her purse and slapped money down onto the bar top, gripping the wood for a moment and taking long, slow breaths. Finally, she freed herself from Cullen's embrace and said, "I'm going home now."

"Wait, Ellie," Cullen pleaded, remaining where he stood, but she waved a hand behind her, dismissing any and all of his concerns as she made her wait to the front door. All she said was, "Home."

Dorian stood beside Cullen and watched as Eleanor pulled open the door and let herself out into the night. Then they shifted their eyes to the young man who had been knocked to the ground by… well, by Eleanor. Cullen's face grew hard as he took a step forward towards the man, who was crab-crawling away from the commander, knocking himself up against a stack of chairs when he found he could go no further. He scrabbled to his feet.

"What are you people?" the man asked imploringly.

"That is the least of your concerns," said Cullen, reaching out and grabbing Eleanor's assailant by the collar of his shirt.

"Cullen," cautioned Dorian, "I think he's had enough."

"I don't" said Cullen with a growl.

"We have other things to worry about," the mage intoned, pointing to the door which had swung shut behind Eleanor's fumbling exit.

Cullen released his grip on the man's shirt. "I wouldn't suggest you come back here for a very long time," the commander said harshly, and stalked away, following Eleanor's wake.

* * *

He caught up with her just as she was passing the foot of the stairs to the bar. Her arms were wrapped tightly around herself, hands gripping her elbows, and she looked shaky and cold. Cullen took off the grey shirt he had been wearing and slung it over Eleanor's shoulders, and she glanced up at him, as though finally realizing he had followed her out.

"Ellie," he began slowly. He wanted to ask her, wanted to ask her what she had felt, what she had done; if his suspicions were correct, they might be about to have a much bigger problem on their hands. Bigger than the Blight? Not globally, no, but this… this might change things.

"I'm okay," she said, her feet still carrying her in the direction of the farm. It was clear to Cullen that she was going to stop for nothing, so he only put an arm around her and walked with her.

He said her name again, softly, but imploringly, "Ellie, tell me - has anything been… different for you lately?"

He looked down at her with soft brown eyes, so rich, so full of concern that Eleanor wanted to burst into tears right then and there. She should have told him before, she knew that now. He presented no threat to her; how could he? Fighting back exhaustion and a sadness, an emptiness that came in waves, she had to look away from him. "Cullen," she offered, unsure of whether she should move closer to him, or further away, "I've been having these… dreams."

* * *

 _Author's note:_ Bonus chapter for NYE! I just wanna say thanks to all of the people who have been favoriting and following this story. It's meant a lot to me that in the first month I've started posting the first real book-length thing I've written - and finished - that it's instantly become my most popular work to date. So if you're feeling especially kind, go ahead and let me know what you think.

Also, I've been posting a bit over at AO3, so if you're on there as well as here, find me there as Paperclippe. There's some drabbles and flash fiction up there that I might collect and post here some time, but it probably won't be until all of I, I is posted.

Happy new year, everybody!


	19. I'll Tell You Anything

They walked the rest of the way home in silence. There was nothing more they needed to say. Maybe Eleanor didn't realize the full scope of what was happening, what had happened to her, but she had some inkling, Cullen was certain of that. He thought that he would instantly step up, take charge, put his old templar training to use, but he couldn't. Didn't want to. Only wanted to keep his arm where it was, wrapped around her back, holding her close as they stumbled along the gravel road that lead them back to the farm house. She was tired. She was scared. This was not the time.

And, if he were honest, he felt guilty. It was clear that he had brought something into her world - not him alone of course, the "he" that was encompassed by the Inquisition, the Breach, the Blight, all of this, but he was a party to it - that had changed her. There was no magic, here on Earth; there were no mages.

Except now there were. He was holding one, leading one up the stairs to her front porch, twisting the knob on her bedroom door to lay her exhausted body down in bed. That wouldn't have been possible if there had never been a rift between worlds, and certainly he - they, the Inquisition, whatever - had to take some measure of responsibility for that. Had it affected others? Were there other things leaking through the rifts that he was equally as unprepared for as he was for this?

He couldn't think about that now. He was too tired, and too drunk, and too busy settling Eleanor beneath the covers of her bed. She hadn't even taken off her clothes; still clung to the fabric of the shirt that lay around her shoulders. She had only kicked off her shoes beside the bed. Cullen hadn't even bothered clicking on her bedside lamp. Maker, she looked so small there, so drained. The faint light that filtered in from outside colored her blue and made her look dim and pale. Her eyes were already closed.

Cullen ran a hand along her brow, bent down and placed his own forehead to it, pressing his cheek against hers. She was cold. He shook his head and pulled off his own boots. He didn't want to leave her alone like this, not if she'd been having dreams. Not those dreams.

He went around to the other side of the bed and laid down, on top of the blankets, and draped one arm over her small body. He felt her snuggle a little closer, but whether she was snuggling deeper under the covers or welcoming his frame next to hers on the bed he couldn't say. Either way, she didn't object.

The house remained quiet. Perhaps Dorian and the soldiers had remained behind. Perhaps they had bypassed the house and gone straight on to the barn, Cullen couldn't say. It didn't seem like the thing Dorian would do, but tonight that meant so little. So few things were what they seemed to be hours before.

The thoughts pummelled his brain until Cullen lost track of time, stopped looking at the little alarm clock on the nightstand behind him. He settled his cheek on the pillow, and let himself fall asleep.

* * *

She was gone in the morning. Cullen's boots had been set side by side at the foot of the bed, and in some way, this comforted him, showed him that she had not minded his keeping watch while he slept. Though he wasn't sure how much of a watch he could have been keeping; Cullen couldn't remember ever having slept better. But he looked down at his boots on the floor and swung his legs over the side of Eleanor's tall bed. He felt fine, but his mouth felt disgusting. His smacked his tongue against the roof of his mouth and made to leave the room, made to go upstairs and brush the taste of stale beer and staler cigarettes off of his teeth.

Cullen didn't have to walk down the hall to go upstairs, only had to cross it, but even from this end, he could hear someone, presumably Eleanor, in the kitchen, banging around. He dashed up the steps and into the bathroom, hurriedly running toothbrush and paste over his teeth and tongue. Leaving the bathroom, he saw that Dorian's door was closed; the mage must have returned at some point during the evening, but had waited long enough for Cullen and Eleanor to - to what? Cullen rolled his eyes. Whatever Dorian assumed, it had been incorrect. Unless Pavus had simply figured they'd need ten minutes of quiet to fall fast asleep.

Cullen wondered suddenly if Eleanor had dreamed, and in that moment, nothing was more important to him than asking her.

When he went back down to the kitchen, he found Eleanor not fixing breakfast, as he had assumed he would be, banging about as she was, but cleaning. Cleaning everything, top to bottom. She had washed every pan she owned, and they were stacked precariously in the dishrack, water dripping from them and back into the sink. There were dishrags slung on the backs of chairs, covered in dust; the walls, the ceiling, even the overhead fan seemed to sparkle.

And there was Eleanor now, on hands and knees on the floor, scrub brush gripped between all ten fingers, scrubbing every inch of the floor that her brush could reach. The tables and chairs were pulled away, pushed into corners that had already been scrubbed. Her hair was knotted tight high up on her head. She was dressed in the same t-shirt and jeans that she had worn to the bar last night. Sweat beaded on her forehead and even though she must have heard Cullen approach, Eleanor could not be moved to look up.

"Ellie?" he said, desperate somehow to tear her attention away from the bubbles on the floor. Her knuckles were red and her face was flushed. How long had she been at this? How long ago had she woken up?

She turned her head to look up at him, a string of bangs falling across her eyes. Her scrubbing only slowed to a hypnotic back and forth.

Cullen tugged off his dirty socks and left them in the hallway to pad cautiously across the damp tile floor. He knelt down next to her and laid one hand on top of her own, still clutching the scrub brush. "Looks good to me," he encouraged her, and the look she gave him, the crooked half-smile, half-frown said that she knew, but she didn't know what else could be done.

Taking the brush from her, he suggested, "Alright?" and she rolled her eyes in somewhat sullen agreement. He would have expected nothing less from her. She didn't look worried, weary, worn-down at all. She looked intent, purposeful. She looked like she didn't know quite what to do, so she was going to do absolutely everything she could.

They both stood, and Cullen chucked the brush skillfully into the sink. He took Eleanor into his arms and she laid her head against his chest as he let his chin prop on the top of her head. Cullen looked around and said, "It really does look good."

"Yeah," Eleanor answered, "It needed it. I figured I might as well do something worth-while."

"How did…"

And then he remembered. How long ago was it that she had asked him how he had been sleeping. He thought she was being cute. Flames, he had brushed her off. He should have known right then. The logical part of his brain asked how, how could he have possibly known that she wasn't just making small-talk as they cleaned up after breakfast. Why should he have suspected that this woman from Indiana, from a place that had never touched the Fade before now, was having dreams. Those dreams. He was a templar. Wasn't that part of his training?

Eleanor had tipped her chin away from his chest to look up at him. "Hm?"

"I'll… make some coffee. If…" how did he approach this question. How did he approach this entire subject with someone whose world was changing a little bit more every day.

She did it for him. "Cullen, I'll tell you whatever you need to know. Fuck, I'll tell you anything. I have no idea what's going on with… me, anything, I don't know. I don't even know if I believe…" she shook her head. "I just want to take a shower. But I'll take you up on that coffee," and then, if exhaustion were hitting her very suddenly, "God, will I ever." She stretched her arms up over her head and Cullen heard her spine make several audible pops. He noticed that when she reached up, he could see her ribs under her shirt now; had she always been so thin? There had been a softness to her, he thought, when they had first arrived. Now, looking again, as though seeing her for the first time after a long time away, she was all odd angles; elbows and fingers and jaw. Cullen hoped she would take a long shower. He hoped as well that he could make breakfast for her without mucking up all her hard work. Or burning the kitchen down.

* * *

 _Author's note:_ Just as a head's up, this is the un-beta read version of this story. I am posting it on here in an effort to get additional feedback on the raw material. However, I'm posting the beta-read version up on AO3 if you'd like to check that out. I am going to continue to post this version here, though, in case you guys catch anything that she might miss, or that you might have a unique perspective on.

In the end, there will be a final, betaed, edited, clean version of this story, hopefully within the next few months.

That is all. Hope everyone's having a good 2016 so far.


	20. What Does This Mean?

As Eleanor padded back from her bedroom, warm from the shower and squeaky-clean, she caught a whiff of something. Coffee, yes, but also… what was that?

She peeked into the kitchen and saw Cullen stirring something on the stove, something that smelled heavenly. She let a sly smile crawl across her face as she also saw, beneath his white shirt, the blades of his shoulders flex as he lifted the pot away from the heat, stirred a wooden spoon, treating whatever he was making with delicacy, but all the while betraying his strength and all by moving the muscles in his back.

Eleanor had woken in the very early morning, not roused by a dream but by the remembered sensation of all of that energy being ripped away from her body in the bar. Cullen had lain still next to her, and she turned a bit, penned in by the sheets as he lay on top of them and she lay beneath. She wished that he had been bold enough to slip underneath the blankets if only for comfort's sake, but she turned over and reached out, nestling herself against him, her nose to his neck and she tried so hard, willed herself with all she had, to fall back to sleep, but sleep wouldn't come. Whenever she closed her eyes she felt the whiteness, felt it more than saw it, and it took all the weariness away from her body in the least pleasant way imaginable, like after drinking too much coffee and finding yourself mentally ready to nod off but underneath you your whole body was buzzing. So she got up and wandered aimlessly around, until she flicked on the kitchen light and saw all the dead bugs that had collected there throughout the long hot summer. And that was how it had started. She had cleaned out the inside of the bowl, even wiped the dust from the spirals of the halogen bulb, and she hadn't thought about the whiteness. But now that the overhead light was clean, all she saw around her were the other things she had been neglecting since the Inquisition had arrived on her back lawn. Just after five in the morning, she found herself carefully sliding the blades off of the ceiling fan to wash them in the sink.

Now, though, watching his skeleton flex under his shirt, she wished she had tried a little harder to go back to bed.

"Whatcha got there?" she asked, walking around the kitchen table that Cullen had been so kind as to put back into place. Eleanor noticed as well that all of the dishcloths were gone, replaced with two fresh ones that hung over the handle of the oven, the place that clean dishcloths always went, and that the sink basins themselves had been cleaned of all the dust and grit that had lined them after many a wrung towel deposited its grimy contents down the drain. If Eleanor hadn't been privy to the events of the previous evening, she might have suspected the Cullen was trying to make amends for a very serious grievance. But she knew that he was trying to comfort her, and doing it in the best way that he knew how - helping her with the little things that she hated to do, or was just too tired to deal with. Bless him, she thought.

"Ah, I hope you don't mind. I nabbed some of the strawberries you had stored in the freezer, and I noticed that you had oats…" He held up the pan to just under her nose and Eleanor breathed in the rich smell of grains and berries, yes, but also of cream and honey and were those the walnuts she'd had stashed in the cupboard? She'd forgotten all about those. She stared down into the giant pot of oatmeal and let out a contented sigh.

"I don't mind at all," she said.

* * *

They sat at the kitchen table with monstrous bowls of oatmeal and mugs of coffee and Eleanor told him all the things she had been keeping inside. She told him all about the dreams, and tried to explain to him what she had felt the night before, tried to tell him that it was like something being pulled out of her at the same time that she was pushing it, that it was overcoming her at the same time that she was summoning it. He asked her if she'd ever experienced anything like that before.

"Only when I wake up in the middle of the night," she said, and if it all hadn't before, that confirmed it for him.

Eleanor was a mage.

She twiddled with her fingers, and Cullen wondered if she wanted a cigarette but didn't want to get up to get one. Instead, she reached for her coffee and took a long drink until the mug was empty. Cullen reached onto the counter behind him and grabbed the carafe to pour her another cup. She accepted gratefully.

"What does this mean?" she asked quietly. "What do we do now?"

Cullen shook his head. He'd never known a mage to discover their power so late in life, and he didn't know what risks would come with it. But there were other practical questions that popped into his head, and he reasoned with them out loud for Eleanor's sake. "Well, I think it stands to reason that you're well out of any Circle's jurisdiction. But you're in luck, I suppose. I'll be here to watch over you." The words left his mouth and he cringed, not liking them as soon as they were made into sounds. "I… didn't mean that the way it sounded."

Eleanor laughed and shook her head. "I'm with you, Cullen."

Something in those four words threatened to take his breath away. He reached out across the table and took her hand. "About last night…"

"Isn't that - oh. You mean… 'about last night.'"

"Are we… okay?"

"Cullen. You slept in my bed."

"You were rather tired."

Eleanor rolled her eyes but squeezed his hand. "If I didn't want you there I would have forcibly extracted you, believe me. Tired or otherwise." But he seemed to still be waiting. "We're okay. We're good." She let his hand go and pulled the oatmeal towards her, taking a few satisfying bites before she asked, "Is this going to be a problem?"

"Wh - us?"

Eleanor shook her head. "My... " God, she couldn't even say the word, not when she was applying it to herself, but she forced it out around another mouthful of strawberries and walnuts. "My magic-ness."

He wanted to tell her of course not. He wanted to tell her she would be fine. To tell her that it would be a useful skill, that Dorian could teach her, that he could help keep her safe, help her understand, that nothing could touch her. But behind his eyes the images of a hundred abominations flashed, the memories of how many failed Harrowings. Would he have to Harrow her?

He wanted to, but he couldn't lie to her.

"I don't know."


	21. It's Not the End of the World

"Do we know it wasn't a one-off thing?"

Dorian had slept in late, and there was still a throbbing in his brain that signaled he had had more than a bit too much too drink. Once the young man who had harassed Eleanor - John - had been removed from the bar, and with help from the bartender at that, Dorian had decided to give Cullen and Eleanor space. He reasoned that she was no longer in any immediate danger, and that if anyone could protect her it would have been Cullen.

After all, he had seen the way he had looked at her from across the table.

He had seen the way she had looked at him.

So he conspired with the soldiers to give the pair at least the space of time it would take to walk home.

Which had somehow turned into staying until last call.

And that had somehow turned into finding out that perhaps Micah wouldn't have minded taking Eleanor's place at the bar.

He didn't know what hour of the morning it was when he crawled back into his bed, but there couldn't have been more than a handful of hours of darkness before the sun rose. So when Cullen had come for him around noon, Dorian felt as though he was being awoken in the middle of the night. He had groaned and reluctantly rolled out of bed and answered the door, his normally coiffed hair sticking out in all directions.

Now Dorian sat on the end of his bed and Cullen sat in the chair at Dorian's desk. The mage had his throbbing forehead pressed in his hands, and he was trying, really trying to pay attention despite it, knowing that the topic was serious and worthy of discussion. But the nagging very Dorian part of his brain wondered if it maybe couldn't have waited. It wasn't like Eleanor would suddenly become a blood mage if Cullen had waited for Dorian to wake up on his own.

Cullen shrugged. "I've never heard of anything like that. People are either mages or they're not." That was something he was entirely certain of. There were mages with more power and mages with less, but he couldn't recall an instance of a normal person being able to use magic in an instance of extreme stress. That was just a mage.

"Are you certain it was magic? Could it have been some other ability?" There were lots of things that looked like magic and weren't; the templars themselves inhabited that grey area between superior abilities and magic use - indeed, they even imbibed lyrium to enhance those abilities. But they could do them without that lyrium, Cullen himself was evidence of that. What the templars couldn't do was pull from any internal source of mana. If other things were bleeding through the Breach, then perhaps this grey area had bled through as well.

Cullen pursed his lips, running a hand through his wiry blond hair. "She's been having dreams."

"...Ah." Dorian didn't have to ask. There were dreams and then there were dreams, and given Cullen's history in the Order, Dorian could be almost certain that the templar would be able to distinguish between the two.

"Don't tell me you didn't feel it last night. When she… reacted."

Dorian looked up from the palms of his hands. He had felt something, yes. Had felt something that was to him simple and natural. And perhaps that was the answer right there. He had felt something, and not thought it too out of the ordinary, because magic was so much a part of him. It was not a part of the commander, not in the same way. He had grown up in a world with magic, a place unlike this frankly barren land, but he had been trained to identify it, seek it out, and, Dorian thought with more than a hint of malice, in extreme cases, quash it. To Dorian, magic just was, or it wasn't.

"Then what do you need me for, if you're so certain?" the mage asked, pushing the palms of his hands against his eyes. Even the floral pattern of the bedsheets was making him nauseated, and the soft blue and white pattern in the carpeting wasn't doing him any favors either. He needed coffee, and food, and water, and not necessarily in that order.

"Well," said Cullen quietly, "you're a mage."

"I'm not going to babysit her, Cullen. She's a grown woman. And anyway, isn't that more your territory?"

"I was hoping… maybe… you could teach her?"

The words took Dorian aback and for the first time that morning - afternoon - he sat up straight. "Indeed."

* * *

Dorian nursed his throbbing headache a bit with a mug of coffee and a shower, and went to find Eleanor, but she was not in the house. Swiffer seemed to want to point the mage in the right direction, and when Dorian walked past, the cat pawed at the screen door as if to say, "This way." Smiling despite himself, Pavus pushed open the door and let the kitten out onto the porch, Swiffer then bounding away and around the side of the house. Dorian, for lack of any other insight, dutifully followed.

He and Swiffer found Eleanor sitting, just sitting on the furthest reaches of the lawn. She was barefoot, wearing a soft blue cotton dress. Her hands were in her lap, and her head was bowed down, brown hair covering her face. A bit dramatic, Dorian thought. It's not like her life was over. Why, he'd been a mage for nearly forty years and he was doing just fine. He approached her slowly, dry grass crunching beneath his boots.

"Cheer up, Ellie. It's not the end of the world. And I would know - I've seen the end of the world."

She picked up her head, surveying the land, before fixing her eyes on Dorian. They were red, rimmed with tears. "Dorian," she said, opening her hands in front of her as though she were presenting the earth to her. The sky above her was a roiling mass of dark clouds. Rain threatened, ozone giving the air a metallic tang. "It's dead. It's all dead."

He looked around and now saw what she saw. The grass was brown and sharp like needles. No wildflowers bloomed; the ones that had sprinkled the grass just days ago lay like broken toys, their petals dead and whipped away by the autumn breezes that swept the flat landscape. The earth itself showed through in patches where even dead things had lost their purchase, and it was bleached and sandy and parched. And then he looked at Eleanor. The grass was sharp, no moisture now to grant it resilience, and it had pricked her skin in a thousand tiny places along her legs and feet like so many infinitesimal tattoos.

He let her cry. He had nothing to say. Her home was dying, dying because of something that came from his home. He could not comfort her, could not wipe her tears away and make it all better. Instead he dropped to his own knees on the brown grass beside her, its sharpness jabbing him even through his clothes, and he took her hands in his. Dorian was not the type to make inspiring speeches. He was not the man you called when you needed to rally the troops. That man was inside, without a hint of understanding about what to do. But he would be remiss to leave Eleanor here, a weeping, bleeding thing, when maybe, just maybe, he could help. He couldn't fix her home, not directly. But he could help her with what she was becoming.

Through her hands, he sent a spell. The wounds on her legs closed up, leaving only the small rivulets of blood on her skin.

"I don't… normally do this kind of thing, you see. This isn't what you would call my speciality."

"Healing?"

"In a word."

"What do you specialize in?"

"I'm not certain your Cullen would approve."

"But?"

Oh, she was clever. "But he sent me out here to teach you."

Something like a smile flickered on Eleanor's face, and Dorian managed to catch it before it vanished. "Then teach away."


	22. You're Doing Well

They came back inside when the rain soaked them. The rain was the only thing around her that felt alive. So though Swiffer had quickly scampered as soon as the first drops had started to fall, and Dorian had wanted to, he stayed behind with the barefoot Eleanor who seemed exhausted, yes, exhausted from her efforts, but also somehow revived. He could see it in her eyes, and he welcomed it, even as it scared him. He could see that she wanted to help. He could see that she thought now that she could help.

She couldn't.

Not yet, anyway. Not like this.

They had worked for hours just for him to be able to sense Eleanor's latent mana. He could feel it when he reached out and touched the tips of her fingers, but only then. Cullen had not been wrong, whatever was in her was magic, but it was so small. So fragile. Whatever she had done in the bar last night, however she had done it, it was gone now, and Dorian wasn't the type to be willing to put Eleanor in another threatening situation just to coax the power out of her. That was more the type of thing that Cullen's people would do.

But he humored her, at least in this, walking slowly back to the house with her though he was becoming soaked from head to toe, just as she was, her bare feet squelching happily in the mud. Wet, her hair hung down to the small of her back and all of the soft waves were pulled out of it. The brownness was made dark and it looked like a veil of night hung about her head and shoulders, the effect only enhanced by the soft blue cotton dress, now the tint of a moonlit sky, dark and heavy but rich with color. She seemed to be a part of the rain, a part of the surroundings, and it crystallized for him why the death of the grass, of the wildflowers that were really no more than colorful weeds, upset her so much. It wasn't just a part of her land, a part of her home dying. It was a part of her. She was this night creature that walked through the landscape, not in a metaphysical way, but in a puzzle-piece way; that was just how she fit in here. She fit in as a part of this world, not just an inhabitant but an integral piece, somehow holding it all together.

"God, my feet are disgusting," she said with a deep, throaty laugh, and the illusion was lost. She was now just Eleanor again, just a woman, a remarkable woman no doubt, and a strong one. No - not just. She was not just anything.

"You're doing well," Dorian said, though it was a meaningless phrase, really - doing well for what? For the first person on this plane of reality to harbor a gift for magic? For the only person he had ever known to manifest magic so late in life, thanks in no small part to the thread of his world that had invaded hers? What measures were these? But maybe he didn't mean it in reference to her magical ability. Maybe he meant it on a more poignant level - the one where she was helping to head up the defense of her world from things outside of it, and taking it like a champ. The kind where she let herself break down and cry, but then got up, and laughed as she walked home in the rain. Certainly, in those ways, she was doing better than he would have done.

His voice was almost drowned out by the fat drops of the rain, but she heard him all the same as they approached the house, the porch, and instead of answering him, she gave him a big fat thumbs up.

Yes. She was doing just fine.

* * *

"Look at you, you're soaked," said Cullen, as Eleanor proudly strode into the house, dripping from every edge of her body. "Maker's breath, let me get you a towel." He stood up from his place at the kitchen table where he sat flicking through missives from Thedas, and went to the linen closet that lay tucked away under the stairs.

Eleanor could have gotten her own towel, but frankly, she was buzzing. She couldn't do any magic yet, no, not really, and she knew that. Most of the time spent out on the dead lawn was more Dorian speaking magic and Eleanor absorbing. There were so many different kinds, so many different things she hadn't even heard of before. Rift mages and knight enchanters and spirit healers and nothing in her body could believe that Dorian, sweet, charming, dashing Dorian was a necromancer, but there it was.

"What, no towel for me?" he said, pouting in a way that was so pathetic it could only be a joke. Eleanor leaned past Cullen, brushing her wet hair against him as she plucked out a towel for the poor, sopping mage, his hair plastered flat against his head, and tossed it to him gracefully. "Voila," she sang, and then waited patiently for Cullen to hand her one of her own since he seemed so intent on doing it, even though she'd just proved she could have done it herself by now. But he made sure he selected the biggest, fluffiest one and wrapped her up in it like it were a blanket, and she let him, even though she was ten steps from her bedroom and planned on changing promptly. But the blanket's soft, fuzzy embrace made her smile, made her smile like the tingles that lingered in her fingers and toes made her smile. Something inside of her, something that had felt like a knot, a knot she had lived with for all her life and so she never knew it was a knot at all had come untangled and she felt freed from a prison to which she hadn't ever known she'd been confined. Even if this was all she ever got out of it, even if she never cast a real spell, never created a glyph in her life, it was worth it for this feeling, this inner bubbling, this churning inside her like the excitement in a pot that was just about to boil.

She felt so alive.

"Yes, well," Dorian said, hugging the pale yellow towel to himself with one hand and using the other to clutch a corner and rub the water out of his hair, causing his black locks to stick up at wild angles. "I think I'll go change." And he rolled his eyes in the direction he was turning, as thought they would carry him more quickly to the stairs. His footfalls resounded on the creaky steps as he ascended. It was a good sound, Eleanor thought. At first she was reluctant, but she had come around. It felt good to have people filling the big, old house; people she liked, trusted, to take up the big spaces.

"Let me make you something hot to drink," Cullen offered, dashing the water that had gotten on his own hands away with a shake.

"Wait, no, Cullen, I'm fine, just come here a minute," the words spilled out of her mouth. Was it the magic? Or just the rain? She'd been so frightened by, so stripped by the power last night. But now that she was not afraid, it didn't have that power over her anymore. It just had power.

"I'm right here, El," he said, but turned around again to face her. She reached out, letting the towel fall as she took his hands, closing her eyes and letting that power, the small power she could now summon on command, the little power that did nothing, only felt, felt like only itself, ran from a place in her mind, in her gut, down to her hands, out of her fingertips, and poured into his.

Cullen immediately jerked away. Eleanor was left there, holding out her hands, pouring herself, her invisible self, into nothing, as though she hadn't yet noticed that he'd broken her grasp. But she had. The expression on her face said so.

The playfulness she had felt, the surge of childlike joy instantly died. She held her hands out still as though willing the commander to come back, but he didn't. And in that moment, Eleanor made her hands into fists, closed her eyes, and pressed the magic back down inside of herself, swallowing hard with the effort. It was not hard simply to stop it; if she went too long, she feared she would drain herself dry. But she had already discovered that to stifle the flow, to completely cut it off, to keep it from being available at a moment's notice, took as much effort as summoning it up in the first place. It was like breaking into a hard run: it took effort to get up to speed, but once you were going, until you ran out of breath, it was easier just to keep going, to gently slow, than to come to a dead stop.

She wanted to say something to him. A nagging voice in her head said, "I'm sorry," but she wasn't. Why would she be sorry? She had only wanted to show him what she felt, what she had learnt. So she said nothing, but waited for him to speak.

Seconds passed, seconds that seemed to take hours, eons. Eleanor's heart began to race in her chest, her indignance slowly fading away. Maybe she had startled him. She didn't have anything like the power or the skill to injure him - he must have known that - but his eyes betrayed nothing.

Eleanor licked her lips, turning her head and blinking as she gathered herself up enough to gently beckon him. "Cullen," she said, the sound punctuated by the drip drop drip of the water that hit the floor, running from her hair, her rain-logged dress.

"Ellie, I…"

She waited for him to say something else, say anything at all, but he only put up his hands as if to plead that it wasn't his fault, and then he turned from her, and went back to the kitchen.

Stunned, she stood in the hallway, in her puddle, for a moment longer, before snatching up the towel from where it had fallen to the floor, wrapped it angrily over her shoulders, and went to her bedroom, slamming the door behind her.


	23. We Have a Lot to Discuss

She didn't want to be so upset by this, Eleanor thought, sitting on the edge of her bed, knees pulled up to her chest. A cigarette dangled from her lips because she had thought she'd wanted the nicotine, but maybe she'd just wanted something to do, something to distract her; now that she was lost in thought, she'd nearly forgotten it was there. No, Eleanor, now having calmed some from her door-slamming, decided that she was not simply being petulant. It was Cullen who had pushed the issue. Cullen who had come to her after the bar, stayed in her bed to watch over her, come to her the next morning to talk, sent Dorian after her because of this. What would she have done? Nothing! Accepted the fact that she had somehow inexplicably saved herself from being accosted and moved on. She would have gone to bed, slept soundly, woken up, maybe scrubbed the kitchen, scrubbed until she forgot, and some years later when talking to friends, she would have recounted it as an old story told in the same way that one told stories that said, "When I was a kid I'm pretty sure my house was haunted," when it was really just raccoons that lived in the attic but the haunting story was so much better. She would have written it off as one of those weird things you just can't explain, one of those odd sensations in a moment that make you turn right instead of left and somehow you probably saved your life, but of course, you never really know.

But Cullen was here, and Cullen nagged her. Cullen made it "a thing." It didn't need to be "a thing," Eleanor reasoned, except that it was too late now. As if to prove it, she brought the magic back up, let it surge into her hands, and -

There was a crash of thunder, a splitting burst of light. The room went dark. The red cherry on the end of the cigarette hung only inches in front of her face, and she could see it burn in the sudden blackness. The storm, Eleanor thought. It had only grown stronger through the evening, probably the last big storm of the year before it gave way to, or maybe even brought with it, the calmer, cooler, more autumnal weather, gentle storms and gentle sun and gentle breezes, but more often uniform grey days with no trees even to turn shades of red and orange and bring a subtle fire to the landscape. Maybe she would drive up north, she thought, or no; she would go south, south to warmer weather, if only by a bit, to the Great Smoky Mountains. It was a long drive, but god knew she could use a long drive and some scenery. If she could take the time away from here, for whatever reason, there were any number of national forests within an hour or so. But the idea was in her head now, and -

And it was not the storm. As Eleanor reached over to deposit her dying cigarette in the ashtray, an act so ingrained into her muscle memory that she did not need to be able to see to do it, her eyes slipped to the space under her bedroom door, slipped and were drawn there because the lights in the hallway were still on. And she realized that no one else in the house was shouting about the power. Cullen may have let it go, but Dorian certainly would not have. No, it must have been a breaker, the breaker for her room had been tripped. But she had plugged nothing extra in, turned nothing else on except…

Except her.

Despite the darkness, Eleanor looked down at her hands again, felt that lingering burn in her fingers, like the burn after a good workout, felt the magic there, ready to be summoned up again at her beck and call. She rubbed them together, tugging on her thumbs, massaging the circumference of her wrists. She could send the mana through her whole body, but Dorian was right when he had said that her hands were the best point to focus on. Apparently she had been able to focus a bit too well. Eleanor hadn't thought of the consequences of doing magic indoors, even as she recalled Dorian having been hesitant to show it to her in the truck on the Inquisition's first day here. It seemed he was right about that as well. And already, she could feel it getting stronger.

Eleanor's shoulders began to shake, to shudder with an all-consuming laughter. She couldn't ascribe to it a reason, it just was, and was there, pouring out of her like the power that had put out the lights.

Power, indeed.

* * *

Dorian's training had taken it out of her, despite her intermittent fits of giggles, and so after she went down to the basement to flip the breaker back on, Eleanor had a cup of tea, during which time Cullen saw fit to go back upstairs to his own room without so much as a 'goodnight' while Eleanor boiled the water, and made her way to bed.

She thought at first the screams were in her head.

Her body drove her bolt upright, and the first thing she really took in as a waking thought was Swiffer meowing, shrieking, scratching, at Eleanor's bedroom door. She rose quickly to let the cat in and the feline almost lept into Eleanor's arms as she bent down to retrieve the terrified grey fuzzball.

"What is it, little girl?" she whispered to the kitten in her arms.

And then the screaming came again, though this time it didn't sound so much like a scream, not a human scream anyway, but the high-pitched wailing of something evil, something damned. It had not been her dream.

There were boots on the stairs, first one pair, and then a second. If Dorian were roused from sleep, roused enough to dress, then this wasn't nothing. As if agreeing, Swiffer tried to bury herself against the skin of Eleanor's chest, the cat's paws grabbing at Eleanor's hair as though the locks wrapped around her would offer the kitten some protection against… what?

Dressed only in her pajamas, still holding the kitten, Eleanor left her room and went out into the hallway as the screen door slammed. Whatever it was, it was outside, and Cullen and Dorian were seeking it out. The scream came again and Swiffer cried out in response.

"Hush," said Eleanor gently, and followed the mage and the commander out onto the porch. She saw their forms as they started toward the back of the house, rounding the porch on its right hand side, and then they stopped dead, looking up.

A shadow passed over the moon. Eleanor walked down onto the lawn and craned her neck skyward.

A dragon would have been bad enough. But this was no dragon, not anymore.

It had the shape of a dragon, but it looked diseased, ripped, torn. It's teeth showed through, glinting in the moonlight, and Eleanor couldn't quite make out its face as it soared overhead but every angle of the thing, every scale seemed to radiate evil, pain, sickness. It swooped and glided in the sky, letting out its mournful shrieks, making a sound almost like thunder with every flap of its wings.

"Mother of god," Eleanor moaned.

Cullen turned around, summoned either by Eleanor's invocation or Swiffer's cries, saw her standing on the grass, still wet from the rain, barefooted, eyes turned up to the beast, and everything that had happened between them was wiped away. He took one slow step and then picked up the pace, almost sprinting the twenty paces between him and her. He took Eleanor into his arms, one hand around her waist, the other on the back of her head, and held her against him as she held the trembling kitten.

It must have been the sheer awe that drove the fear out of her voice, but it was level and strong if soft when she asked, "Cullen, what..?"

"The Archdemon, Ellie. I… should have told you sooner."

The beast circled the house as if noticing them, and gave one more dive before it shot off in the direction of the ravine, crying out its horrible screams all the way. In its wake, more clouds rolled in, and the sky went dark, blotting out the waxing moon. A rumble of thunder cracked through the air.

"Let's go back inside," said Dorian, approaching them. "We have a lot to discuss."


	24. It Worked Out Well for Her

Cullen told her all he could about the beast. Told her that all along they had been waiting for it to show itself. Told her that they had to wait, because without an Archdemon the Grey Wardens couldn't end the Blight. He told her of the Wardens, that they and they alone were the only ones who could truly bring a Blight to its end, that they were special, they were people who took the Taint of the Blight into themselves, which allowed them to slay the Archdemon permanently, as the tainted Old God's essence could only be allowed to jump into a Grey Warden, a fellow tainted thing, which would destroy the Warden and the darkspawn both. If anyone else were to slay the Archdemon, its soul would simply jump into the next available darkspawn which would turn into a new Archdemon and would not end the Blight.

Eleanor only kept nodding. He would explain, and she would nod. He would elaborate, in case she hadn't understood, and she would nod again. She was hearing everything he said, that much was true, but whether or not any of it was penetrating her mind was another story completely. She had seen a lot of weird shit since this whole thing started, seen, yes, and done, and become.

But Cullen was trying to tell her about a fucking dragon.

It hadn't sunk in at first, as she held Swiffer close and followed its path across the sky with her straining eyes, as its blackness and the sky's blackness began to fade into one, and it just became a patch where the stars weren't the further and further away it flew. But once it was gone, once Cullen had released his grip on her, and they followed Dorian into the house, her brain began to process again, and it told her, "You have just seen a dragon, flying in the skies above your home in Indiana." And now Cullen was telling her that the dragon was not a dragon at all, not a dying, desiccated dragon even, but that it was really a demon. An Archdemon, for whatever difference that made. And not even just that, but it was a dragon that was a demon that had once been and Old God.

Eleanor could accept this strange gift of magic that she had been granted, because she could feel it, had seen it manifest, had had it confirmed by those around her.

Eleanor could accept that these men and their soldiers had come to her home through a dimensional rift, because she had seen it happen, and because she had met the people that had come through, had lived with them for some time, and had reached a point where doubting their experiences, discounting them as little more than an elaborate story, was more irrational than accepting the truth. And even if she couldn't do the maths for it on her fingers, there was science that perhaps suggested the maths were there.

Eleanor could accept that a Blight was killing her land, was diseasing everything it touched, because Eleanor knew about sickness; she had seen it in the world, had seen the cancer eat her father, had seen her own crops fail, and if this sickness took the form of gnarled, mangled humanoids, she could reconcile that, because she had seen twisted, broken forms of living things ravaged by many different kinds of disease.

But even Eleanor had a limit. And that limit fell somewhere in between, "I have just seen a dragon fly over my house," and "I have just seen a dragon fly over my house that is not actually a dragon but is some kind of Lovecraftian horror that so terrifying and existentially numbing that it is literally the physical embodiment of all the other bullet points on the list of weird shit I have henceforth been willing to accept."

"El? Are you listening?"

Eleanor blinked quickly as the sound of Cullen's voice saying her own name startled her out of her reflection.

"Y-yeah. I'm here. So… can we just go get some Grey Wardens?"

Dorian hung his head a bit as though this had already been explained, and maybe it had, and maybe Eleanor had just missed it while she was still coming to terms with The Dragon That Wasn't Actually a Dragon. "Cullen, it's late. We should let her get some sleep." It was punctuated with a non-verbal, "She's had a long day," and indeed, she had, in a few different ways.

But even still, Eleanor objected. "No, I'm alright. This is just… hard to wrap my head around. I'm trying."

Cullen smiled a sad sort of smile and shook his head. "We can talk tomorrow. It won't make a difference," he said, and there was such resignation, such finality in that last phrase that Eleanor wanted to pluck it out of the air, take it away from the ether and make it so that it had never been spoken. She knew he only meant the time; the hour was late enough that it was already tomorrow on the clock, and delaying their conversation until the sun rose was the sensible thing to do. But it was the way he said it.

It won't make a difference.

The way he said it she could tell that he felt the words in his bones in some other context, in any other context, and she wanted it not to be true for him. Not now, not ever.

And the memory of his rejection of her that afternoon, the rejection of her magic, of her magedom, stung fresh.

She must have winced, or made some face, because he reached out - he reached out and touched her on the hand, the same place he had pulled back from only hours before - and asked, "What is it?"

Eleanor wanted to turn her hand over, to have his fingers resting on her palm so that she could curl up her own hand around his and squeeze it, if even just to reassure him that she was there, she was listening.

But Dorian rose to address Cullen's previous statement. "True enough," he said, rising from his seat with an exaggerated stretch. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to get back to bed, barring any further dragons that may seek to invade."

Cullen nodded, pulling back from Eleanor, and rose, too, pushing in his chair as he watched the mage walk down the hallway. But then his eyes glanced down to Ellie, still seated at the kitchen table in the dim glow of the fluorescent light above the sink. He frowned when she did not look up at him.

"Look, El," he began, and her attention was removed from whatever point in space she had been staring into as she finally glanced up at him. "I was wrong to… to do what I did. To you."

She nodded, but didn't speak, only brought her hand to her chin and rubbed at it with her thumb and forefinger, as though she were waiting to say something, or waiting for him to say something more.

"I would blame it on my training but that would be a lie, mostly. I've worked with mages, with magic, for years now. I've seen the good it can do." He was going to say, "And the bad," but that was not the discussion they were having. He was having. "In truth, I think," he paused, trying to figure out how to say what he thought, "I think I was afraid." Now Eleanor opened her mouth to speak but he put up his hand, quietly pleading to let him finish, so she did. "I know. It's stupid, quite frankly. But a templar's biggest fear is to have magic used against them. It's why we're taught to dispel it. And…" he pulled a thought together that had hadn't previously, "and maybe because we're taught so many defenses against magic it becomes our biggest fear." He sat again so that he could be level with her, and said, "I reacted. Perhaps at first without thought, and then my thoughts filled in and confirmed my biases. I didn't think," he didn't think she would hurt him was what he didn't think, but she knew that, and so he said it again, with more finality. "I didn't think. And for that, I am sorry."

Swallowing hard, Eleanor bowed her head in acceptance. She brought her hands to the hollows under her eyes and and rubbed them hard, letting his apology sink in.

"Alright," she said, without picking her head back up. "Alright."

He started to stand again, but stopped, and went back down into the chair. His face looked strained, and when Cullen spoke again, it was very slowly. "I thought…" but then he seemed to take it back. "I fell in love with a mage once."

Eleanor's head picked up now, her eyes looking at him straight instead of from beneath her heavy lids.

Cullen went on. "I was young, but I was already a templar. Maybe it wasn't love, maybe it was -" he shook his head. "It doesn't matter. She didn't return my feelings. Or maybe she did, but I never knew. She left the Circle." He smiled what seemed to be an embarrassed smile, raising his eyebrows in an expression that said he was aware of how he sounded. "But it worked out well for her, in the end."

Eleanor cocked her head to the side, asking the question without words.

"She ended a Blight."


	25. I Don't Like It

Just as he promised, the following day Cullen brought everything down to the dining room table, all of the letters he had been exchanging between Leliana, between the Wardens, between anyone and everyone else who he planned on turning to for help. Dorian had more gathered up in his arms; he was returning to Thedas that day with correspondence, but Cullen gave everything a one-over to make sure he wasn't leaving anything out when he put all the pieces together for Eleanor, after which they bid the mage adieu and sent him back through the Breach. It was always so strange to watch him go; one minute, a figure would be standing on the now-dead lawn below what looked like a swarm of gnats some indiscernible distance overhead, and then the swarm would expand and glow and become The Breach, and then the figure was gone. Eleanor wondered what it was like to make that trip.

Cullen cleared his throat and began, though there wasn't much more to say. He told her the Grey Wardens were a shadow of their former selves and had been spending the past few years rebuilding their ranks. Blights in Thedas were sometimes decades but more often centuries apart, so they had expected to have more time to get their house back in order, but they understood the needs of a place plagued by a Blight more than any others would or could, so they were now recruiting as quickly as they could without being careless. Fortunately, the previous Blight had lasted only a year and so not many lives were claimed. Unfortunately, a few years after that, another incident, related to the one that had lead to the reconstruction of the Inquisition of which Cullen himself was a part, had lead to the demise of many Wardens and dismantled their headquarters at Weisshaupt. That was why Cullen had not simply immediately called for an army of Wardens to come to Indiana, flushed out the Archdemon, and been done with it. There were not enough Wardens to be had. If all of them died - not that he wanted anyone to die of course, but you had to plan for the worst, and anyway "all of them" just wasn't that many right now - in an effort just to rouse the Archdemon, then they were in the same position as before but with a pissed off Archdemon that knew Grey Wardens were coming for it. The Wardens could sense the Archdemon thanks to the Taint, but the property was commutative: if the Wardens could sense the Archdemon, the Archdemon could sense the Wardens.

Until such time as he and the Inquisition felt that there were enough Grey Wardens successfully recruited - successfully being the operative word, as often the initiation ritual, The Joining, itself was fatal - and at least somewhat trained, Cullen and Dorian and the small band of rotating soldiers were there to observe the activity at the ravine and eliminate any darkspawn that ventured out into the surrounding countryside. For the past few months, then, that was exactly what they had been doing, with Eleanor's help. There wasn't much more they could do.

"That's why I didn't tell you sooner, El. There wasn't anything else that could be done. And I didn't… The Archdemon, it…"

She had her hands folded in her lap, and she put them up now, just a little flick of her wrists that said he didn't need to say anymore. Did Eleanor wish he had told her? Of course she did. But if everything he said was true, and she had no reason to doubt him, then she understood. She doubted that he really could have told her about the Archdemon anyway. Could he have described it? Maybe. Told her its malignant purpose? He just had. But he couldn't have explained the way that she would feel now knowing there was something that monstrous living beneath her feet. And it wouldn't have mattered if he had. It didn't change anything. Didn't make anymore of these Grey Wardens that they needed.

Which made her ask, "How many Wardens will we need? A dozen? A hundred?"

Cullen sucked in a breath as though he were about to speak, and then let the air out quickly, putting one hand behind his head and turning away from her, his gaze going quickly to the ceiling.

"What is it?" she asked. "More than that? How long will that take?"

She watched him roll his shoulders, roll his head on his neck. "Ellie," he said, still facing away from her, "That's the problem. We don't… we don't know." She heard him breathe through his teeth, a frustrated hissing sound, and then he turned back to her, to the table, and picked up a letter, handing it to her, though she couldn't read the writing and he knew it. But somehow the gesture made his words seem more honest, his pained expression all the more genuine.

"Leliana wants more information. Not the kind of information you get from spies. The kind you get from soldiers. She wants…" he knelt down and gently took the letter back from Eleanor, holding it in one hand as he took Eleanor's own hand in the other. The look on his face was not fear, was something more like irritation, but that wasn't quite it either.

Eleanor reached out and put her eyes on the side of Cullen's face, feeling more stubble there than she remembered from the bar, reached up and ran her fingers through his hair. "What's up, Cullen?"

"I'm going to have to send our forces down there."

The way he said it, the way his deep-set brown eyes stayed fixed on hers said that he was going too. Down into the ravine, the ravine that seemed as though it it no longer had an end, a bottom, was full to the brim of crawling darkspawn, darkspawn that his dozen soldiers hadn't had an easy time taking down, and there could be hundreds, thousands of the things down there. From what he had told her, there could be even more still. The ravine had to be big enough to hide a dragon the size of a house. Who knew how much bigger it was?

Which was the point, wasn't it. Someone had to find out. Someone who knew what they were looking for, someone who could report back to the Inquisition, to the Grey Wardens, who could tell them the scope of the situation. Cullen quite obviously was the man for the job. He was an experienced military leader, and he knew how to get what he wanted from his people, in no small part because they liked and respected him. He already had boots on the ground. All he needed to do was to take them deeper.

"When?" she asked him.

He stood, dropping her hand, letting her fingers slip away from him. "Soon. I'll only take a small party, enough to hopefully escape too much notice. But some of the troops are due to go home, so it'll probably be after the next rotation." A rotation was expected in about a week or so, but if this was as urgent as it seemed, Eleanor knew that Leliana was perfectly capable of sending more soldiers early; she had done it after the darkspawn had come so close to the house the first time - the only time, thank goodness. Fresh eyes, fresh bodies. The only people who never got to go home were Cullen and Dorian, and Dorian was the one who reported back to the Inquisition, to Skyhold, since he was not under the same obligation as Cullen to command troops in case an emergency situation arose. Dorian was never gone more than a day, maybe two, but it also never seemed worth the risk.

Eleanor wondered if he missed it, and if he did, if he'd ever have the chance to go back, just for a day or so. But if this situation, this probe down into the ravine revealed the best-case scenario, that the Wardens were nearly ready or already ready, and they could be reached quickly and easily, maybe he would be able to go home soon for good. Eleanor somehow knew that the odds of that were slim, but even still, it made her a little sad. She didn't want to keep Cullen against his wishes, but the man had made no mutterings, had given no homesick laments. Perhaps, being a soldier, being the kind of man he was, having been brought up in the environment that he had had been, perhaps he was just inordinately flexible. But Eleanor didn't think that that was the case, or not the whole case at least. Maybe he liked it here. Not just because of her, she was not that vain and did not think, could not know if his feelings were that serious. She wasn't sure hers were - she wasn't sure they weren't, but even still. No, she thought it seemed as though he almost liked this quiet, flat place, this simple, solitary life, insofar as it was isolated from the outside world. When she found him sitting in the off-puttingly floral room that had become his own over the past months, writing letters and gazing out of the small second-story window, she thought she saw a wistful contentedness on his face. It could have been that she imagined it simply because she enjoyed having him here, but she never once heard him complain, not even in the small, bored ways that Dorian had complained and did complain still. Either he was just that stoic, or he had no complaints to share.

She wanted to go with him, but she knew he would say no. She didn't know what she could offer; all she had was her gun. Her magic wasn't even strong enough to defend herself, let alone others; even the night in the bar she hadn't hurt John, only pushed him away. And the effort had left her exhausted. Eleanor was no good to them, no good even to herself. Eleanor reached up and ran the ends of her long hair through her fingers. She tangled up a little knot of stray strands that she pulled free from the rest of her hair, and looked away as she twiddled her fingers and let the shed hairs fall to the floor.

"I don't like it," she said quietly, but she knew it was a useless thing to say.

"This…" Cullen said, putting his hands on the back of his neck and staring out of the dining room window, "is my job. This, more than anything, is why I was sent here. I knew it was coming. And it's not the worst thing I've ever done. But," he let his hands drop, turning back to her, "I don't like it either. There could be anything down there. I've fought darkspawn, but not on a scale like this. I trust my troops. This is what they've been trained for. But it doesn't mean I'm looking forward to putting them into this kind of danger." He smiled a little sideways smile then, perhaps to placate her. "Maybe there's nothing down there. Maybe we haven't seen very many darkspawn because there just aren't very many darkspawn around."

She knew the look on his face. The look that said it was a nice thought, but he knew there was no substance to it. It was the kind of expression people got when they said, "Maybe I'll get that raise," or "Maybe one day I'll move away from here." His maybe was not quite so big or distant, and at the same time, it was even more so. This wasn't such a long-term goal, but it was a much more dangerous undertaking. Eleanor didn't know how far the Blight was capable of spreading but she wasn't ready discount it as being confined to this little patch of land, this little place that she called home. Maybe it could spread to the whole state. The whole country. Cullen had seen a Blight spread with his own two eyes, seen how far it could reach. He would do his job.

Eleanor leaned forward and started to roll up the papers on the table, returning them to their original configurations. Some had been sealed with wax which didn't seem to restick, but others had been tied with small bits of twine, and those she put careful little bows around before stacking the documents into an awkward pyramid for Cullen to take back upstairs. She let her gaze rest on the little stack, piled up there on the dining room table. She wondered how big a stack like that could grow before this all was over.

"How long do Blights last?" she asked him. "You said the most recent one only lasted a year?"

She didn't get an answer.

After another moment of silence, Eleanor turned back around, and saw that Cullen had returned his gaze to the window, out the window, in the direction of the ravine. He had one hand pressed against the window frame, his head hung low in a display of utter resignation.

"Cullen?" she took the half a dozen steps to his side, reaching up and resting one hand on his shoulder.

"It… depends."

She knew the answer would not be good.

"The Fifth Blight, the last one, yes. A year. The Fourth lasted twelve, and the Third, fifteen." And then he stopped.

"The Second?" she asked.

"The Second Blight lasted ninety years," he said quietly, not taking his eyes away from the landscape. "The First Blight lasted two hundred."

It wasn't the Archdemon that Cullen had been keeping from her.

It was this.


	26. We Fight It

"They're getting shorter, though, aren't they?"

After the existential horror of the information Cullen had delivered to her had sunk in, had processed in her mind that what she was seeing just a few dozen miles from home might be the start of a ravaging terror that had the power to destroy empires and last for centuries, Eleanor started making excuses. It was what the mind did in the face of such evidence. So she went about her day, making lunch, answering emails, and every now and again she would pop up her head and ask something hopeful.

"They… they have," he tried to answer her honestly. "We have a lot more information; we have better weapons, better strategies. But this is a whole new set of circumstances. Who knows what things affect the strength of a Blight? Who knows how long the darkspawn have been setting up camp here?" He ran his hands through his hair. "We don't even know if this is the Sixth Blight, or a new First."

"Does it matter?" she asked, looking up from the stove.

He blinked, as though the thought had not occurred to him, crossed his arms in front of his blue t-shirted chest. "I suppose it doesn't."

"When did you say the Breach first opened on your side?" she stirred a pot that would be lentil soup. The air was chilly today. Soup would warm her bones.

"Seven? Eight years ago?"

"Then that's all the longer they could have been here, right? I mean, there was no other way for them to get through." She put the heat on low and laid the spoon on the counter top. "Right?"

Cullen leaned in the kitchen doorway. "Ostensibly."

But then Eleanor was the one who furrowed her brow now. "Are years even the same?"

"The same as what?"

"Between here and there. Is it fall? Is it daylight right now? Are years between three hundred and fifty and three hundred and seventy five days?"

Cullen opened his mouth in thought, his tongue probing at his teeth as he tried to remember. Did the days feel the same here as there? Could he even really remember anymore? He had spent thirty-seven years in Thedas but the months he was now removed from it had become the norm. He tried to remember his first days here. Was he disoriented? Did night seem to come too soon? Did the seasons change too fast? Too slow?

No, no he didn't think so. Nothing felt out of place - well, a lot of things felt out of place, but for all of that, not his sense of time.

"They must be the same," he said, as much to himself as to her. He scratched the stubble under his chin. Was that to be expected? Would the Breach only create a pathway between similar worlds? Could it only? Did the conditions between each end point have to be the same?

Cullen squinted his eyes. This was not his area of expertise. As far as he knew, this was no one's area of expertise, but he was not suited for this. All he knew of the Breach was what he had seen and been told, and he used that knowledge as best as he could. He was not the speculating type, the kind to sit and figure this and that. That was more Dorian's speed, more Inquisitor Trevelyan's speed, certainly. Not only because they were mages but because they were patient, bookish when they needed to be. Even Varric would be more suited to this task, Cullen couldn't help but feel. He could at least put it in the work to find words for the things that that Cullen was trying to articulate, even to himself.

"That's weird," Eleanor remarked, as if feeling the same way. As if she knew there was more to say on the topic, but the two word statement that she'd uttered was just about enough to sum it up perfectly. And it was weird, at that. That two - what were they, realms? Planets? Dimensions? The longer she thought about it, the less she was certain she wanted to know. She couldn't think of Cullen as an alien, though she supposed no matter what, that's what he was, in a way. Could two distinct worlds be so similar that one could bleed over into the other in so many strange ways, small and large? And maybe it was only because they were so similar. If they were vastly different worlds, perhaps there would be no connection. No way for the streams to cross.

Part of her was horrified by it.

Part of her was glad they had.

"Cullen, if… if this thing does last years," and in her head, it repeated - years and years and years - "what do we do?"

He reached out and touched her elbow, and there was a sternness on his face, a strength that Eleanor envied, and that she knew was why he was the commander. "We fight it, El. We fight it until it's over, one way or another."

* * *

 _Author's note_ : So, first and foremost, I just want to say thank you to everyone who has been reading this. On 01/13 I hit a milestone for myself, which was to get more than 200 views in one day. And while that may sound like bragging - and maybe it is - it's something that I absolutely could not have done without all of you. So that's pretty incredible, and I want to thank you. Writing this, I wasn't really sure it was going to be anything. None of my NaNo projects have amounted to much (see: anything) before, so the fact that people are even reading this is a huge change for me.

Which brings me to my next point, which is a question: as I've said before, this is the un-beta read version of InkyIndy. However, it is currently being beta read by an amazing friend of mine. What that means for you is that this text that I'm posting here is already different from the "corrected" version of this story. Now, I am going to continue to post the un-beta read version in its entirety in the hopes of garnering any feedback that would also be useful in correcting a further edition of the story (and so that I can keep up a regular posting schedule, because sometimes beta reading takes a bit of time). This, in a round about way, brings me to the question. I'm trying to decide what would be the best way of posting this story over again, effectively. Starting at Chapter 01 and just replacing the old text with new? Deleting all the old chapters and reposting? Or just posting the story afresh as a whole new entry? Do any of you have an experience with this? Any advice? And as always, any feedback on the story is more than welcome.

Thanks again, guys. You've been great.


	27. I've Just Managed to Ruin Everything

They thought they were waiting for the next rotation, but it turned into waiting for Dorian to return. He had been gone for a span of twenty-four hours in the past, for spans approaching forty-eight. But after he had been gone for three days, Cullen and Eleanor began to get nervous. It wasn't just that Dorian was supposed to deliver the letters that Cullen had written to Leliana, to Josephine, to Inquisitor Trevelyan, the letters that his troops had written to their families, and to return the replies. They were waiting for that, of course, and those letters very well may have been delivered. Probably had been, in fact. It was waiting for the replies that was the problem, because along with any pre-composed letters that had been waiting deliver before he left and any quick missives that might be jotted off in response to the things that had been sent with him, he had to bring the new rota, to tell what troops to return, and to bring the replacements. Strictly speaking, it wasn't Dorian's place to send and recall troops. It was Cullen's, and the Inquisitor's. But Dorian, by virtue of his position, or more, his lack of the responsibility that Cullen had, was the messenger. And without the messenger, there could be no message.

"Can you go after him?" Eleanor asked. Her hands were sticky with honey; she had just completed the final harvest of frames from the hives. Despite the fact that she had only been able to split the hive once this year, and there had been no risk of swarming at all, no overabundance of potentially warring queens, the bees had still created enough honey for Eleanor to harvest it comb-style, cutting off huge chunks of the honeycomb and stuffing them into mason jars with the beautiful hexagonal patterns intact. There had to be quite a lot of honey for the combs to be useable on their own, instead of separating the honey from the wax by force. The comb was edible - the comb was delicious - but if there was too little honey to go around, it would be waxy and thick and tasteless. Eleanor would set aside a hunk or two so that she could have simple honey for her tea and a bit of wax to make a few small candles that she would sell at the county's autumn farmer's market, but the comb honey was where the real gold was in terms of taste, in terms of profit, in terms of sheer interest and elegance. Even if she kept half for herself - and she just might, with so many extra people around - she could almost fund the yearly expense of the hives on this, the final honeycomb harvest alone. As a result, the entire kitchen was covered in wax paper, every available surface stacked to the rafters with frames and combs. It was hard work, doing it on her own, but it was enjoyable. Eleanor loved the bees, and the output of useable material from the hives despite the Blight, despite the smaller colony - and Eleanor suspected the two were related - seemed to indicate that the bees loved her as well. She wondered if there would be any bees left this time next year. Or in fifteen years. Or ninety, or two hundred. But as she focused her effort into separating out a particularly stubborn piece of honeycomb to fit into the mouth of the jar, the thought fled her mind, was converted into work.

Cullen was shaking his head. "I can't. I'd need magic to reopen the Breach."

Eleanor frowned sideways. Though she'd set aside a portion of each day while Dorian was gone to practice the methods he had taught her to reach down and summon her mana, to harness it, and to suppress it again, she had the unsurprising notion that hers would not be enough to make the Breach even aware. She could feel herself getting stronger, could feel the magic tugging at her, teaching her on its own to do more, but she suspected it would be nothing like enough fuel to take a trip between two worlds.

"How does the Inquisitor do it?"

"Well, I expect that has less to do with her magic than with her Anchor."

"The Inquisitor is a mage? Are they very common then?"

"Like weeds," Cullen said, only half-jokingly. Eleanor shot him a stern look as she tried to brush her hair out of her face with the back of her wrist to avoid getting honey in her bangs. Cullen's hands being clean, he reached out and tucked her hair behind her ear by way of apology. "Some people suspect mages make up half of the population, and that the discrepancy is made up of people either strong or smart enough not to reveal their powers or mages so weak that it's a non-issue. I think it's more like a third. Maybe a fourth. But it's certainly not uncommon."

"And you want to lock that many people away?" she asked, both honestly and directly.

"It's not -" he sighed. He would not, could not have this argument with her. "Yes, the Inquisitor is a mage. But Dorian couldn't make a new Breach just because he is too; the Breach is left slightly open. It's like…" he looked around, trying to find a suitable metaphor. His eyes alit on the back door, beside the kitchen sink. "It's like leaving a door unlocked. It can be opened by anyone who knows which way to turn the knob, as opposed to just leaving it wide open for anyone to walk right in."

"And only the Inquisitor can lock it again?"

Cullen nodded.

"Alright," Eleanor said. "So what if another mage on our side just walks past."

"Name one."

"That's not the point," Eleanor said, turning the vinyl gloves she wore inside out and tossing them in the trash as she reached down and began to screw shut the lids on her current batch of jars.

"I do see your point," Cullen said, finding a honey-free spot on the table to put his hands down on as he leaned in close to Eleanor. "But the risk seems so small…"

Eleanor pursed her lips, and when she spoke, Cullen could tell she was not joking; that this was coming from a place of real concern. "You came here, to this random spot in the middle of a state that has more cows than people, and you met one other person. And that person turned out to be a mage. How small is the risk, really?"

He was close enough to her that it stirred the hairs on her neck when he let out a deep sigh. "I… can't argue that. But you also had others here to explain to you what was happening, to show you what this strange and unusual thing that you had done really was, and," he leaned in closer, a bit conspiratorially, so that their noses were only inches apart, "I've only told you just now that you maybe, maybe might be able to work the Breach yourself. Perhaps not now, but maybe. And even if you're strong enough, you still don't know how to manipulate it. Would you have figured it out on your own?"

Well, he had her there, and to let him know it, she jabbed her elbow into his exposed ribs, not hard, but hard enough to make her point - he might be right, but she had a point as well. Cullen "oofed" a bit with the impact and stood back up, putting his hand on her shoulder and giving it a gentle squeeze.

"Oh, that's nice," Eleanor groaned with the release his hand gave the frozen muscles in her arms, her back. She'd been working at this all day, bent over the just too low surface of her table. Cullen acknowledged her sore muscles and moved over to be able to use both hands, as Eleanor straightened her posture and pressed herself into the motion of his knuckles, his thumbs. She rolled her shoulders against the action and felt the most delicious relief. A tingle surged through her that was not entirely unlike the feeling of magic in her limbs, but it was only the sensation of her bound-up muscles coming free of knots beneath her skin. Cullen's calloused hands were strong enough to do the work, but aware enough to know which places needed more pressure than others. Maybe it was because of his work with a sword, Eleanor thought. She didn't know much about combat, but she figured that you couldn't just choke up on a sword all the time. You had to have some kind of flexibility, some sense of movement and ease. She remembered the first time she'd discovered him out on the lawn, practicing with his blade. His first morning here. His movements were fluid like a dance, like water. There was nothing overbearing or strong about it. But he'd moved the paint can back into the house with ease, like it weighed nothing. She was small, but she was not weak, her years of working on the farm - which, admittedly, had been harder when her father was alive, when they had still owned and cultivated all of the land that Eleanor could see from the back lawn; there was so little left to do now that she had sold the tractor - having built her muscles up day by day. But to her the paint can was still heavy, still a chore to move. Not impossible, not even really difficult, but still a task that required effort, especially when it came to bringing it up the basement steps.

Cullen dug his thumb into a particularly stubborn knot beneath Eleanor's right shoulder blade, and the brief jab of pain - a welcome, warm pain that told her work was being done - knocked something loose in her mind.

She'd never finished painting the house.

An obstinate laugh began to rise up inside of her. On that warm June day, the most important thing in the world had been to finish that task so that she could move onto others. Finish the house, then fix that shutter, then go inside and sit on that computer and fish for development work; things that would pay well even if they took more time than she wanted to put in, if only because she didn't want to be inside all summer long.

It had been months since she'd taken any kind of job that was not an immediate necessity to keep the farm from falling apart - that was still her first priority, even if she wasn't giving it as much care as she needed - or something Inquisition related. That had become her main focus, though she promised herself, had even told Cullen, that she wouldn't do that. But when she saw the Blight, when she felt its encroachment, and when she witnessed the work, the amount of time and energy that the Inquisition forces poured into fighting this thing, fighting not for their land but for hers, their health and well-being were paramount. Keeping up with everything on both sides of the Breach - insomuch as she was privy, and now she felt as though she were almost as well-versed as Cullen, barring his experience - and keeping up with everyone's needs took up more of her time than she had expected. Little things, but things she had grown to value, to love. Using her power tools to sharpen blades. Running out for boot polish. Finding enough pairs of pliers to help repair chainmail that was damaged in skirmishes with darkspawn.

But of course, there were slow days, sometimes weeks, but rarely, when all concern could slip away. There were little things she knew she could do, but in the moments when she found herself on the porch with a beer, or in the morning, a hot cup of coffee, a quiet moment of solace before someone came and sat down with her - not that she minded the company, but there was something special about sitting out there alone - in those moments, it was hard to make herself focus on the small things that could wait, and easier to focus on the moment, and in that moment, just to breathe.

And so the house had never gotten painted.

And beneath Cullen's hands, Eleanor's shoulders began to shake, and from her belly, she began to laugh.

Cullen stopped the motion of his fingers but didn't pull them away from her back and asked, "What's this now?"

She craned her neck, not wanting to move far enough that he would have to let her go. His hands had a welcome warmth, a warmth that she wished she'd taken advantage of before.

"Do you remember when I asked you to put the paint can in the basement?"

He squinted, not realizing for a moment that this was not something she'd asked of him recently, not something he'd been asked but had forgotten to do. When it came back to him, she felt him nod, and he said, "That was an awful long time ago." He'd started picking up words that she used; she noticed it now when he said "awful" instead of "awfully" and she wondered if he was just doing it for her, or even because he was being directly influenced by her speech patterns in this moment, or if he'd begun doing it all of the time. Cullen didn't seem like an easily influenced kind of person, but then again, he wasn't unyielding either, not by any stretch.

"Months," she agreed, and then lead on, "You know how we never brought that paint can back up from the basement?" She turned around and gave him a weak, embarrassed smile, and to her relief he didn't take his hands away, only slid them down to her forearms as she turned.

His eyebrows rose in sympathy. "You never finished the house."

She shook her head.

Humor thick in his voice, he said, "Well, I've just managed to ruin everything, haven't I," and he gave her arms a squeeze, pulling her in a little closer.

"You certainly have, Commander." She could see the lines on his face now in the autumn sunlight, pale and golden, that came in the kitchen windows. This was the closest she'd been to him in a relaxed situation, in the heavy autumn daylight. This was the closest she'd been to him since the Archdemon had shown itself and he'd pulled her and Swiffer close to his chest - the small grey furball having been kicked out of the kitchen by way of child gates placed across the hall and dining room doorways to keep the cat from getting honey in her fuzz or vice-versa while Eleanor was working with the combs - and suddenly that night seemed miles away, years ago, with Cullen here in the kitchen, and she in his arms. The lines on his face were stern, the grey in his hair almost glittering in the sun. But when he smiled, the creases deepened, and new ones seemed to appear as if from thin air around the corners of his eyes. This was a man who was not averse to smiling, not a man cursed with an ill-humor. Maybe he just hadn't had much reason to smile lately, or at all. But she liked it when he did. "It's hard to get anything done with you around," she teased, and let him interpret that however he wanted.

"You've gotten a lot done today," he said, and indicated the finished jars on the kitchen table, the few boxes on the floor, already shoved into corners, full of jars that she'd filled earlier that morning.

"And there's a lot more to do," she said, pointing to the unfinished combs that sat on top of the flat surface of the stove, covered with a piece of cardboard to level out the burners and covered with more wax paper. The combs were resting on top of the largest roasting pan she owned, drip drip dripping their honey onto it, filling up the roasting pan; but it wasn't a waste. She could always scoop up the honey into jars with combs, or, if there was enough, jars without.

"Tell me about this," he said, letting her go and he sidled up to the table, tapping one of the sealed but as yet unboxed jars with the knuckle of his index finger. It made a hollow ringing noise, not at all unpleasant.

"You don't have bees in Ferelden?"

Cullen rolled his eyes, "Of course we have bees. All of Thedas has bees." He thought of Sera, and had to suppress both a frown and a laugh. He thought Sera would like Eleanor. And Eleanor would like Sera, most likely. Which seemed dangerous. "But," he confessed, "I can't recall ever having seen honey like this before."

"This is the best honey," Eleanor said proudly. It wasn't so much a boast of her own but a boast for her bees, who had never failed to produce excellent work. She chalked it up to the fact that she was surrounded by nothing but farmland, and that her own crops, especially now, were sweet things; berries and a small patch of tomatoes. She thought it gave the honey an almost fruity flavor, though it might have been all in her head; the bees may have strayed far out to the corn blossoms and alfalfa that grew in abundance in neighboring farms and never touched her berries, though she knew they must. She had seen them there. Either way, Eleanor could confidently assert she had tasted no finer honey than her own. Her father had said she was the bee whisperer. Maybe it was true. She couldn't say she had never been stung by a bee - she had, many hundreds of times. But the more she handled them, the less they stung. She was hardly bothered by the pain anymore; she scraped out the stingers with her fingernails and ran rubbing alcohol on them and they cleared up in a matter of hours. Her arms and the back of her neck bore little red dots from the pre-dawn harvest; she'd taken the combs when the air was still cool and the bees were still sleepy from the chill. She shook them off almost like the were lint on a towel fresh out of the dryer. Only a few had taken offense at her invasion of their home and had gotten around her gloves and sleeves to sting her maybe a half a dozen times. Not bad at all. She hadn't even needed the smoker.

"And what about the combs?" he lifted up the jar and peered inside as though he were missing something crucial.

Eleanor sighed. "It's better in wooden boxes, I know" she admitted, "but they're harder to come by than they used to be. At least it's not plastic; the glass doesn't interfere with the flavor."

But she could see he didn't understand.

"Cullen, you eat it," she clarified.

He squinted through the glass. "You just… eat it? Isn't… It's made of beeswax," he said.

She took the jar from him and set it down, wiping her hands off on her jeans as though that would make a real difference. Reaching out again, she unscrewed the jar and reached in to pinch the honeycomb between her thumb and middle finger, carefully extracting it from the glass. She wiped off some of the honey on the rim of the jar to keep it from dripping; she wasn't afraid of getting sticky, but there was no point in making more mess than she had to make. Grasping the comb firmly in both hands, she split it in half, keeping one for herself, and giving half to Cullen. He looked down at his hands, rubbing his fingertips against his palms as though savoring their last moments free of golden ooze, still dubious of what he was about to do, and took the comb from Eleanor. He watched as she popped hers in her mouth and saw the smile of complete bliss cross her face as she chewed, her attention completely taken away from him.

Well, he trusted her.

Cullen raised the little cube to his mouth with one hand, the other cupped under his chin to catch any honey that might drip from the comb. He gave it a tentative nibble, flinching a bit as though the honeycomb was still full of bees that were liable to swarm out and sting him at any moment. But all he got was a taste of honey, cloying and sweet, and a faint smell of flowers and somehow, sunshine. Alright, he thought. It's honey. How bad can it be. He put the honeycomb in his mouth and chewed.

Honey burst from the wax and flooded his tastebuds, almost overwhelming him. He understood Eleanor's expression, her distraction now. He probably looked the same way; he didn't care that his fingers were sticky, that honey had dripped down his chin. This was something a tiny creature, an army of tiny creatures had made, completely without concern for the much larger creatures that would come along and tend those little things until this comb could be harvested, could be consumed, and yet it was somehow the most perfect thing he'd ever eaten. Even the wax, the wax that had put him off when he saw it sitting in the jar, was soft, dissolving in his mouth into a much less intense, more earthy kind of sweetness, and he chewed, savoring it until it was just a tiny shred between his teeth and there was no more to be had.

Eleanor, her own honey having been consumed but still chewing tenderly on the wax, had watched him with amusement. "I told you so," she said, and sucked the honey off of her thumb to reach out and wipe away the drop that had gotten on his chin.

Cullen, brain still flooded with the rush of endorphins from the sweetness, the perfection of the honey, put out his hand to grab her wrist gently, bringing her thumb to his mouth and kissing the honey off of it, and then off of each and every one of the fingers on her right hand as Eleanor took in a deep, shaking breath, but smiled a small, open-lipped smile. He tugged on her wrist to pull her in close, wrapping his arm around her, back of his hand to her spine, and pressed his lips to hers, softly at first, gently, and then as he felt her pressing back, returning the kiss to him, he pulled her in tighter, kissed her harder, crushing his lips to hers and Cullen was suddenly unsure of how he had ever done without this.

Eleanor wrapped an arm around his neck, pulling him down lower, kissing him roughly, his stubble scratching the soft skin of her face. There was still honey on her lips, on his, and there was a richer taste from him, a hot, human taste, and she sought it out, taking his full bottom lip between her teeth, threatening something more violent, a threat she would never act on, unless, of course, she would.

And he wanted her to.

He needed to be closer to her, couldn't pull her tightly enough, and he found himself pushing against her, his feet directing hers until she was backed up against the refrigerator and his lips parted from hers only to kiss her jaw, the dimple below her ear, the path of her neck all the way down to her collar bones.

Small sounds escaped her without her knowledge, without her volition, involuntary groans that told him not to stop; the bob of her throat when she swallowed hard and tipped back her head, her ponytail working itself loose as it was pressed up against the surface of the freezer. shorter hairs freeing themselves and framing her face, the picture of desire, of bliss.

Cullen brought his lips back up to hers, fighting hard against his own urges to slow his pace, to catch his breath, and he bit back a moan as she pushed out and kissed him hard once more before resting his forehead against hers.

"So, ah, there's something here? It's not just me?"

She laughed a breathless laugh. He loved the sound of it. "Of course it's not just you, I told you that."

She had, at that. But there had been drinks, and then there had been chaos. He only wanted, perhaps selfishly, to make sure that this was not a one time thing, this brief flash of passion. His nose still brushed hers, but he needed to know, needed to make sure that he could have this again. For those few moments, her skin, her mouth, had overtaken everything - the Breach, the Blight, the Archdemon - and a small piece of him could only hope that the darkspawn would hang around for a few hundred years.

Eleanor kissed him again, quickly, too quickly, and though her heart was still racing she forced herself to part from him. "If you'll excuse me, I feel like I really need to wash my hands."


	28. It's Not My Place to Decide

It took Eleanor a few more hours to finish up with the honeycombs, and a little while more to clean up all the wax paper, and the little drips and sticky spots that had somehow thwarted her efforts to keep clean. Cullen helped, mopping up little spots his boots would stick to when he noticed them, but mostly he stayed in the dining room, to the table heavy once again with documents, looking for anything that might indicate why Dorian would be gone so long. But all of Leliana's recent missives, all of the reports from her agents, indicated nothing out of the ordinary, except perhaps that the Grey Wardens were not responding as quickly or frequently as the Inquisition might like. Even if that proved to be a problem, it shouldn't detain Dorian any longer than normal, not when there was work on this side of the Breach to be done. Sending forces into the ravine was almost certainly as urgent, if not more urgent, than hearing back from the Wardens, because without that reconnaissance, there was no reliable information to contact the Wardens with anyway.

When the kitchen had been returned to normal, when Eleanor had showered all of the sugar from her skin, she sat at one of the dining room chairs, waiting for Cullen to pick up his head, to finish reading through the same ten or so documents for a third time.

"Are you worried?" she asked him quietly.

He sighed. "I… No. I don't think so. Not for him, anyway. Worried for…" and he moved his hands in a wide circle that indicated the house, the landscape, Thedas, anything that might be keeping the mage, "maybe. I can't help but get the feeling that if Dorian himself needed to stay behind, that they couldn't have just sent someone else to let us know. Or sent through the fresh solders. Even if our current troops can't return home, if the Breach is closed behind new soldiers, they could at least rest. Take a few days without patrols." Cullen shrugged, defeated. "I guess that's not my place to decide."

"It kinda is, though, isn't it?" Eleanor offered.

He laughed, a single, dry laugh. "You're right, it is. But from this side, there's not much of a way for me to exercise my power." He went around to her chair, let a hand rest on her arm.

"You're worried something's happened over there," Eleanor said, reading the tense expression on his face.

"I can't help but think it's the only explanation."

"I wish I could do something," Eleanor said, half to Cullen, half to herself. What good was finding out you had magic if you couldn't do anything with it?

He touched her hair, still damp from the shower. It would dry in soft, sea-like waves if she let it, if she didn't go to bed with her hair still soggy and wake up with a fierce case of bedhead. Both were charming, at least to Cullen, but it was true that her dark brown waves were beautiful. Between that and her big, blue-grey eyes, she looked most almost like one of the Dalish than anything. But there were no elves here. No dwarves either. He had asked. Eleanor couldn't even make a picture in her head of Qunari. What a strange world, Cullen mused, that had only such people in it. He wondered if maybe there were places that only had elves or dwarves or followers of the Qun.

"You're doing plenty," he assured her, and she was. For someone who was as new to this - all this, from the bottom up - as she was, there was not a single thing he could have asked of her. Most of the time, when he was not on patrol or getting reports to or from his troops, it was he who felt as though he was not pulling his weight. He remembered again the house, half-unpainted. Maybe it wouldn't kill him to help her with that.

"I'm doing errands," she said, dismissive of herself.

"They need to be done," he said.

"I know," she relented.

So much needed to be done, and Cullen looked up at the clock on the wall, as though checking the time would hurry Dorian home. He wanted to get started. They couldn't just head down into the ravine; they needed time to prepare. He needed time to prepare. He needed…

Cullen stifled a yawn, the time on the clock only now sinking in. It was past eleven; not outrageously late, but late enough that, if Dorian did come back some time in the night or early the next morning, it would behoove the commander to have a good night's rest under his belt. He couldn't imagine how Eleanor, up since before the sun, was as awake as she seemed to be.

He rubbed his face with the lengths of his fingers, stubble scratchy beneath them. He could do with a shave, he thought. A shave and a cup of tea, the cool night air creeping in from the few last windows that Eleanor had left open a crack, just wide enough for Swiffer to slip in and out. A shave and a cup of tea indeed. Maybe not in that order.


	29. Nothing is Ever Going to be the Same

Cullen put the water on to boil, found the tea bags hidden in the cabinet above the sink, a cabinet that was up so high he thought that Eleanor must have to stand on a chair to reach it. But there wasn't much else up here that she seemed to need, so perhaps it wasn't too much of an issue.

He made two cups, and reached for the glass jar on the counter where Eleanor had deposited leftover honey. Cullen spooned a little bit into either cup, the honey and the tea turning the hot water a rich golden brown. The sight and the smell of the tea made him feel warm all over. He almost didn't need to drink it. Putting the lid back on the honey, he remembered the taste of the comb, a buzzing lighting up his brain with the memory of their kiss. Cullen paused, one hand wrapped around either cup, letting his eyes close, letting his lungs fill with air even as his heart began to race again. He wanted to revel in that, to think of nothing but it, but the fact that there were no footfalls coming from upstairs, no voice occasionally interrupting his and Eleanor's conversations with some belligerent remark was throwing off his balance.

"Damn it, Dorian," Cullen said under his breath to no one, as he swept the two cups off of the counter and brought them into the living room.

Eleanor was curled up on the couch with a book in her hand, feet slipped under a furry blue blanket. Swiffer lay stretched out along the top of the couch and, after setting the two cups of tea down on the coffee table, Cullen tried not to disturb the cat as he settled down on the couch next to Eleanor, stealing a corner of the blanket for himself. Eleanor retaliated by tucking her icy feet under his legs and giving him a wink.

Cullen sat quietly, blowing the hot steam from his tea, trying to free his mind of distractions. He tried to tell himself that there were any number of perfectly good reasons that Dorian might not have returned. He couldn't come up with what they were, but there had to be some. He sighed, picking the tea bag up by the string and bobbing the little pouch in the water for lack of anything better to do.

"I'm worried about him too," said Eleanor, either reading his mind or continuing their conversation from earlier. She'd been propped against the arm of the couch but now she closed her book and sat up straight, waving the text gently at Cullen. "I've read the same page four or five times now. I still have no idea what it said," and she let it fall with a thump on the coffee table, next to where her tea cup sat. She reached out and picked that up instead, cradling it gently as she worked herself closer to Cullen.

"He'll be back," Cullen said, for himself or for her or for the both of them, because he wasn't sure he believed it, but hearing it out loud helped. It made the idea of his return more concrete. After all, it had only been three - well, four now - days. Going on four nights.

Eleanor nodded, allowing herself to buy into Cullen's reassurance, taking a sip of the tea and letting him put his arm around her.

"I just don't know what would keep him, El," Cullen muttered. Eleanor had no answers for him, so she remained quiet.

A wind was picking up outside. It rattled the windows gently, a subtle wobbling noise, and Eleanor knew from experience that it meant cold weather was on the way. It had been warmer this morning when she went out to get the honeycombs than it was in the late afternoon when she had gone out onto the porch for a smoke. She'd had to hug her arms around herself and even still she found herself shivering in her t-shirt and jeans. She supposed it was about time, but it made her sad nevertheless, made her clutch her tea a little bit tighter. It was the final thing - a natural thing, to be sure, but just one more thing - that spelled out to her that everything was changing. In the hazy summer heat it almost felt unreal, the wavy uncertainty like a mirage, this strange invasion on her land. But as the summer slipped away with finality, as fall began to give leave to winter, a hard permanence seemed to seep into everything. Cullen's words - ninety years, two hundred years - forced themselves into her consciousness. Eleanor took a deep breath, a stupid thought pressing against her brain.

"Nothing is ever going to be the same," she said into her cup of tea.

If he could have lied to her and told her something better, he would have. But he could not do that. "Probably not."

She took a long drink of her tea, part of her wishing it was something stronger, another part glad that it was not. She didn't need anything stronger, didn't need the inebriated nudge that sometimes made a situation easier to deal with, but often times enlightened the mind to utter futility, despair. She didn't need it, because tears were already springing to her eyes.

Eleanor tried to hide them, but the wobble of her shoulders could really only be read as one thing. With Dorian gone, with Cullen afraid, with the change that had happened, was happening inside of her, with the winter wind pressing its way against the windows of her safe haven, it was all finally too much. She sucked in a deep, shuddering breath and released it in a choked sob.

"Hey," said Cullen gently, taking the tea cup from her hand, setting it and his own down on the table, he wrapped his arms firmly around her, crushing her frame to his chest. She buried her face against his neck and trembled, soaking the front of his shirt with tears, the dark blue fabric turning black with salt water. Cullen pressed his cheek against the top of her head, then turned his face to kiss her hair, kiss her forehead, her brow. "I'm here," he told her.

"I know," she moaned, gasping, crying hard, harder than she had in a long time, as hard as she had when her father had died. This felt like a different sort of loss, the loss of what she had had - a normal life, a comfortable life, bucolic, maybe, but safe, secure, quiet. The past few months were the prelude to something she should have seen coming, were a part of a bigger whole that there was no way to shake. Bad things were happening, maybe even to the people who were supposed to be here to save her. Bad things were happening to the very land beneath her feet. If that wasn't safe, then truly, nothing was. Certainly not her, not with this magic inside of her. Even she was changing, changing from the inside out. She was a part of this, maybe a symptom of this. No, nothing would ever be the same. Not even her. Especially not her.

Cullen put his hands on the sides of her face, tipping her head up so that he could look her in the eyes.

"El, listen to me. No matter what happens, we're going to fight this, remember? I promised you that. I won't break that promise to you." He reached his thumbs over her cheeks to wipe away the tears. Her eyes were red, her cheeks were flushed, her hair had bunched up awkwardly when she had pushed against him. And still, she was beautiful. Not in spite of it, but through it. "El," he repeated, "we'll fight." He craned his neck down so that his lips could meet hers.

She was still crying, more gently now, but she kissed him back, slowly, not with the frantic heat they had felt in the kitchen, but in a desperate, longing way, a searching way, and she twisted her fingers through his coarse hair, holding him as he held her. He pulled her up onto his lap, fingers reaching for her waist, searching under the hem of her shirt to feel her bare skin, hot and soft against his hands. He kissed her lips, kissed her tear-stained cheeks, kissed her flushed neck, pulled her hair away, her shirt away, to kiss her shoulders, the curves of the bones that shaped them.

She whispered his name as he pressed his lips against the flesh just below her collar bones, her own pressed against his temple, kissing the top of his ear, the soft small curve tender against her mouth.

He wanted her, needed her, would take her - if and only if she would let him - but he didn't want to do it here. It seemed too rushed, too uncouth, though his patience was growing ever thinner as his heart pounded, breath grew shallow. Cullen swept her up in his arms and lifted her like she was nothing, and Eleanor complied, wrapping her arms around his neck for balance, unable to stop kissing him even as he stood. It seemed like miles to cross the living room, the hallway, but he made it and pushed open her bedroom door, carelessly slamming it shut behind him, the sound reverberating through the whole house, reminding them how quiet the night was in its loudness.

He laid her down on the bed in the darkness, climbing down next to her, his hands tugging the hem of her shirt up and over her head, his mouth staying below to kiss the flesh of her stomach, her ribs, using those same bones then to pull her close as she responded in kind, and his shirt joined hers on the floor. Eleanor ran her hands over his chest, hard with muscle but softening with age, grabbed at the spot where his shoulders met the back of his neck as he reached behind her, fumbling now with the clasp of her bra.

She hadn't thought of it before this moment - alright, she had thought of it on more than one evening, but not like this - but she laughed softly as she allowed, "Guess they don't have these where you come from," and she reached behind herself to unhook the clasp. He blushed, and was glad it was dark, even if she could feel the warmth in his cheeks. It lasted only a moment before his hands found what they really wanted, and he cupped her breasts, bringing a hard nipple to his mouth, kissing it at first, and then daring to use his teeth.

Eleanor cried out, and Cullen nearly stopped, until he heard her gasp and beg, "Please - yes -" and he obliged, as she grabbed his hair in one hand and held him there, her body almost recoiling in pleasure. Her empty hand reached out to grasp the bed sheets, and she made a fist as her knees drew up nearly to her chest.

Even as his mouth stayed where it was, his hands worked down to slide off her pants, soft black sweatpants that she'd tugged on after her shower. They came away easily, and his thumbs hooked in the band of her underwear, pulling them off as well. Cullen trailed his fingertips down her belly, past her navel, and he released her nipple from his teeth to kiss her again as he cupped her mound. If the skin of her back had been hot, her sex was like grasping a candle. She moaned against his mouth as his fingers traced her full lower lips, the soft tangle of dark hair parting as he pressed a finger within her, slow, shallow at first, then deeper. She broke away from his mouth and made a pleading sound, her fingers grasping his back tight, releasing the bedspread with the other hand to reach for the button of his fly.

"Maker, yes," he breathed as she moved him away from her just far enough that she could undress him as he had her, and she eased him onto his back as her lips found his hipbones, teased the tops of his thigh. She ran the tip of a finger up the shaft of his penis, and now it was Cullen whose hands made fists, who cried out into the night as she took him into her mouth, ran her lips, her tongue up and down along the length of him and he wanted to grab her, wanted to make her stop before he finished right then and there and Maker did he want to but he didn't want it to be over so soon -

As though she could hear his thoughts, she released him, her lips finding their way back up his body, leaving a trail of kisses in her wake, and when her tongue ran a circle around his nipple, she found he enjoyed the sensation almost as much as she had. And then their mouths were together again, and she slid one leg over him, took his shaft in her hand once more if only to guide him inside of her.

"El - Ellie," he breathed as she worked her hips up and down, sighing softly but with voice, a voice that told him that she was where he was, already on the edge, and he reached out his hands to grab her hips, to slow her down, lifting his head from the pillow to kiss her tenderly. He wanted this to last all night - knew it wouldn't, knew it was already almost over, but flames if he wouldn't have her as long as he could.

Her hair hung down beside her face, covering it like a sheet, and he reached out and pulled it away, wanting to see her expression despite the darkness, her closed eyes, her parted lips. He brushed it all over to one side, and Eleanor took his hand, now free, and twisted her fingers up in his, pressing the back of his hand into the pillow beside his head. Her bottom lip was in her teeth; she was struggling, like him, to keep from breaking too soon. It had been too long, too long since she'd been with anyone, but Eleanor knew that it wouldn't have mattered if it hadn't been; she needed Cullen in a way different from any of the other people she'd needed before. She trembled, too close, on the edge and wanting to hold back but not wanting to at all, not anymore.

Eleanor brought her head down and kissed his mouth hard, and something inside of her released. Her whole body shook, the fingers that had been holding his stretched out now as if reaching for something, the other hand pressed hard against the headboard to keep her steady.

Cullen gasped for air against her lips, the muscles that throbbed around him pushing him ever closer to the edge of his own abyss. He brought up one knee, held tight with his arms around her back, and turned her onto her side, her back, pushing quickly inside of her once more as soon as as his legs, his elbows were stable beneath him. Her hair fanned out on the pillows now and he rested his wrist beside her head, caressing her temple, her brow with his thumb, even as his own body pushed him onward, urged his hips to continue their up and down.

Eleanor held his hips, her own body now moving in sync with his even as waves of pleasure still flooded her from before. She could feel his muscles growing rigid, movements becoming shorter, the sinews of his arms that held him up becoming strained and taught. She pushed her hips against him, pressing him deep, deeper still within her.

Cullen's eyes were shut tight, his head tipped up. "Maker - B-blessed... Andras -" Quickly, he lowered himself down, wrapping his arms around Eleanor, one under her shoulders, palm cradling her head, one in the curve of the small of her back, and he drove down into her with a sound that was more like pain than prayer as he gave in.

His cheek, slick with sweat, pushed against hers, lips parted wide as he gasped for air and a second impact of release hit him hard, hips forcing down now almost against his will. She took his head in her hands, squeezing the back of his neck tenderly to ease the tightness there.

His body pulsed a third time, a fourth, again and again, each rush a little smaller, a little less intense than the last, but he kept his arms wrapped around her, not wanting to let her go, not wanting this blissful moment to end. Eleanor turned her head, brushed her lips against his, bringing up her knees a bit to let her back, his body relax without either of them having to move. She stretched out an arm for him to lay his head against and he nestled there, between her shoulder and neck.

Cullen's heart was pounding in his chest, feeling like it might burst even as he relaxed now, holding Eleanor, she holding him, her face turned to meet his, their noses just barely touching.

He felt so good laying here, exhausted, still buried inside of her. He quietly said, "El," by way of telling her so.

"Cul," she answered, with a jog in her breath that almost sounded like a laugh, the kind of laugh not caused by humor but by the overwhelming happiness that had welled up in her chest, but it was soft and gentle and it made him want nothing more than to never move, nothing more than just to lay here and listen to her say his name.


	30. Of All the Days

He woke up to a noise.

The sun was up, just barely, just enough to light the room but not distinctly, a watery sort of early morning light. Was it a dream? Forcing his eyes to stay open, he momentarily didn't recognize the soft blue sheets, the plaid comforter on top of him, and then he felt a weight against his chest, a bump under his neck, and he was overcome with warmth as he touched Eleanor's arms, crossed firmly over his chest as though protecting him from something unseen as she held him. He wiggled around a bit, not wanting her to let go, but wanting to see her face as she slept. Eleanor's eyelids looked soft, but her brows were furrowed, her lips were pursed as though she was contemplating something dire. What was she dreaming? Was she safe in there? He wanted to reach out, to touch her hair in a wonderful state of disarray, a state he knew she would hate, but the sound came again, and Eleanor's eyelids fluttered.

No, he thought to himself, whatever you are, don't wake her. Let her sleep.

"Cullen?" his name drifted down to him, and this pieces fit together in his head. Dorian. Dorian was back, pounding on Cullen's bedroom door. Where, of course, Cullen was not.

Reluctantly, the commander pulled himself away from Eleanor, feeling her body heat grow farther and farther away as he slid toward the edge of the bed. It felt like something was being taken from him. He found his boxers, found his jeans, and tugged them quickly on, not bothering with anything else. He just wanted to keep Dorian from banging on the door again, to keep him from waking Eleanor up.

Cullen pulled open her bedroom door and Swiffer slunk quickly inside with an offended mrrp as though the kitten was angry with Cullen for having kept her out of Eleanor's bedroom all night. Cullen smiled at the small creature and shut the door behind him when he left.

"Dorian," he called up the stairs, his voice a harsh whisper. "I'm down here."

He heard the mage's footfalls in the hallway, and then saw him as he began to descend the stairs. He looked no worse for wear, not as such, but he did look very tired. Despite the darkness of his skin, Cullen could see heavy circles under Pavus' eyes, not something he was used to seeing on the mage.

Dorian's brow furrowed when he saw Cullen standing at the foot of the stairs, and Cullen realized he hadn't even looked at himself in a mirror yet. His hair was almost certainly tragic. He never had had that shave. He hadn't remembered Eleanor having been very rough, but in his bare-chestedness, he didn't know if maybe he was sporting bite marks, scratches. He didn't think so. He hoped not. To deflect from his own appearance, he asked Dorian, "You look tired. What happened? What took so long?"

Dorian shook his head. "I might not be the best one to tell you."

"Hm?" Cullen asked. "Is the rotation here? Do we have a report?"

"In a manner of speaking," said a voice, coming from the direction of the kitchen. It was low and smooth, and Cullen would have known it anywhere.

"Varric," Cullen said, without his eyes even moving to look at the dwarf.

"Hello, Commander."

* * *

Cullen started the coffee, stole a pack of cigarettes from the freezer and a lighter from the junk drawer. He told Varric and Dorian to wait in the kitchen. He knew Eleanor would want to be awake for this.

"Of all the days," he mumbled, padding wearily down the hallway. His arms were sore, legs were unwilling. He could have laid in bed with Eleanor for hours, stayed there longer still for a different reason. But instead, this. It wasn't that Cullen didn't like Varric. Varric was a likeable guy. A likeable guy who could give you ten thousand words and not one of them would be a straight answer. He shook his head, holding his cigarette between his teeth as he slowly pushed open Eleanor's bedroom door.

She was tangled up in the covers. The air in the room was a bit chilly, and Cullen went to the window, open just a crack, and pushed it shut. He went into her bathroom to do the same. He didn't think there would be much opportunity to leave those open again.

Balancing his smoke on the rim of the ashtray, Cullen reached out and pushed Eleanor's tangled hair away from her face, kneeling on the edge of the mattress to bend down slowly and kiss her cheek. She stirred, made a sound like something small and soft.

"Hey, Ellie. Time to wake up," he said, and she responded by reaching out a hand and wrapping it around his arm.

"Come back," she said groggily.

"Flames, I wish I could. Something's come up," he told her, and her eyes opened, her head lifted just a bit.

"Something big?" she asked. Yes, she was awake now, her consciousness focused.

For a split second, hate colored his vision; she shouldn't have to know to wake up suddenly, shouldn't have to focus her mind so quickly on dire circumstance. Damn and blast, he thought. She should be able to sleep. But she was ready, was already rubbing her eyes to force away the comfort that he had already had to leave behind. "Could be," he said.

Eleanor smiled a small smile, propping herself up on her elbow. "Can it wait two minutes?"

He returned her expression, and his mind calmed. "It should."

She sat up now, the sheets falling away from her body, revealing her bare skin in the sunlight. She reached out, pulled him onto the bed, pressing their bodies together, and she kissed him, long and slow, telling him in one action that last night wasn't a one-off, that she might not mind if it was a two- or three- or four-off.

When she pulled away, she said, "I've gotta brush my teeth," and he laughed. Eleanor was no romantic. She swung her legs over the side of the and Cullen watched, not at all subtly, the muscles in her back, her legs, her ass, as she walked to the bathroom. He bit his bottom lip, he squeezed shut his eyes, and quickly he grabbed his shirt from the floor, pulling it over his head.

* * *

Eleanor looked at herself in the mirror, appraising her bare body as she scrubbed her teeth. Her lips were sore from kissing, her legs were sore from pushing, her sex was sore from him. She felt amazing. Felt like she looked amazing. She smiled around the toothbrush, backing up and turning in the mirror. Her breasts were full and pert; maybe not firm or perky but she could see why he wanted them. The pooch of her tummy from being too fond of bread and ice cream even though her ribs stuck out just a few inches above seemed exactly right, even if on every previous occasion she had hated it. She slipped a hand between her legs and touched herself, biting the toothbrush. She was still hot and wet from last night, maybe hot and wet all over again. She knew they would have more time for each other, but she wanted more time right now. Of course Dorian would come back right then, when she could have not needed to bother with removing her clothes, or Cullen's, could have just pulled him on top of her, into her again, gone more slowly this time…

She had to stop. She spat into the sink, rinsed her brush, washed her mouth out and splashed her face with cold, cold water, a poor excuse for a cold shower, or any shower, and went back into her bedroom to pull on clothes, while Cullen sucked his cigarette down to nothing. Eleanor took a ponytail holder from the nightstand and whipped her hair into a braid at what Cullen was sure was inhuman speed, and she gave him a long once-over, sighing.

"Alright," she said. "Let's go save the fucking world."


	31. That's Actually the Plan

"Eleanor, this is Varric," Cullen said, indicating the dwarf with an open hand as he past the table to get his coffee. He pulled two cups from the cabinet and filled them to the brim, set one in front of his chair and one in front of the place where Eleanor now sat.

She reached across the table to Varric, offering him her hand, completely unfazed by this newest arrival's unusual appearance. "Pleasure," she said, giving his hand a firm shake.

"Pleasure's all mine," he answered, and something about the tone of his voice made Eleanor smile broadly. Cullen witnessed this and rolled his eyes, grabbing the ashtray from the dishrack and setting it down between his seat and Eleanor's. He took the pack of cigarettes out of his pocket and laid it on the table next to the ashtray. He had a feeling that Eleanor might want them, and if she didn't, he sure might.

"Alright," Cullen began, wrapping his hands around his cup of coffee, leaning forward into the table, "what's the story. Where are my troops?"

"They," said Dorian, who sat beside Eleanor, "are back at Skyhold, and then are on to Orlais. It would seem Briala has not been the most successful ruler of late, and Trevelyan is cleaning up a mess she helped make."

"Oh, boo hoo," said the dwarf. "The Inquisitor did what was best at the time. Just because eight years later there might be some complications doesn't mean you get to write her off."

"I never said -" but Dorian stopped himself with a sigh through his nose, moving on. "The fact of the matter is, we don't have any additional forces at our disposal. All of the soldiers who had been previously deployed are barely getting a rest, and no one is being sent in their place. At least, not right now."

Eleanor blinked. "Excuse me?"

Dorian frowned sympathetically at her, "Ellie, I don't like it any more than you do."

"You're telling me that there are no soldiers in the barn? On patrol? That there's a god damned Archdemon in the ground twenty-odd miles away and there's no one here but us?" She jabbed her finger against the table in emphasis and her coffee cup jiggled.

"That, unfortunately, is exactly what I'm saying."

"You've gotta be fucking kidding me!" She reached for the pack of cigarettes, smacking it viciously against her palm. "So who the fuck are we going to send into the ravine with Cullen? Me? You?" She pulled a cigarette from the pack with her teeth and skidded it over the surface of the table toward Cullen, reaching for the lighter and saying as she inhaled with a flame in her hand, "You've gotta be fucking kidding me."

"That's… actually the plan," said Varric.

Eleanor froze, the flame from the lighter still blazing, until she burnt her thumb, and she dropped the lighter, shaking the pain from her hand.

"Well," added Varric, "The Inquisitor sent me to go with you?" He raised an eyebrow with an innocent expression on his broad face as though he knew that that was poor compensation.

"Oh, she is not paying me enough for this."

Dorian snickered under his breath. Cullen lit a cigarette of his own.

"This is madness," the commander said, breathing out smoke. "I won't take you down there," he said to Eleanor, and then looked around the table, "any of you. I won't get us all killed."

"Curly, as much as I hate being underground, I'm gonna have to insist you don't go alone, even if that means I have to go with you."

"Yes, well," said Dorian. "I'm not exactly thrilled to death about all this myself, but…" he didn't finish the thought.

Eleanor didn't know what to say. She knew Dorian was experienced in combat, had to assume Varric was from the way he spoke to Cullen. What could she offer? She was a liability, and her expression, angry and confused, said as much.

"Farm Girl," said Varric, "Sparkler tells me you're a mage yourself."

"Barely," Dorian interjected. "I said she was barely a mage."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence, Dor," said Eleanor, but there was no malice in her tone. She was barely a mage.

"You aren't going down there," said Cullen, and he put his hand on top of hers.

"Still, seems odd," noted Varric, "a mage out here. A mage from here."

"Yes, we hadn't noticed," Pavus muttered.

Eleanor shook her head. "I can't do magic," she told Varric. "Not really. Not enough."

The dwarf shrugged, as though he meant nothing by it.

Eleanor pulled gently free of Cullen's grasp and took a long drink of coffee. She wasn't ready for this, wasn't even ready for Cullen to go down there armed with… well, an army. But to take her? Good-for-nothing her? To take Dorian who very obviously hadn't signed up for this kind of thing? Varric didn't seem like he was very happy to be here either, though he was the only one at the table with a smile on his face.

"This isn't right," Cullen dissented. "This isn't what we were promised."

"When have we ever gotten what we were promised, Curly?"

Cullen said nothing, but shook his head, looking down into his coffee.

"What… if we wait?" asked Eleanor.

Rubbing his eyes, his brow, with his thumb and index finger, Cullen didn't look up as he said, "We can't wait. We need to get information to the Wardens as soon as possible now that the Archdemon has shown itself."

"That would be the other thing," said Varric, looking away as though he were interrupting. "Cullen's right, Farm Girl. And Skyhold knows about the Archdemon. Says it's officially a Blight. Means we can't wait, even if we wanted to."

"Son of a bitch," Cullen said under his breath.

"But what can we do about that?" Eleanor asked, her eyes darting from person to person.

"Oh, absolutely nothing," Dorian assured her sarcastically.

"Just makes it official," said Varric with a laugh in his voice. Eleanor didn't see what was so funny.

"I hate this," Cullen groaned. He wanted it to be some bad dream, to wake up and find that, even if there was still a Blight, even if he had to go down into that ravine, that it wasn't like this. That he was still lying next to Eleanor and Dorian hadn't come back yet and when he did it was with a full battalion and Eleanor didn't have to put herself anywhere near harm. He didn't even understand why the Inquisitor - or Leliana, he couldn't be sure just who was calling the shots anymore - would want Eleanor to go down there. Did they think she still needed proof? Or that she would have some knowledge of the land because she was from here? She hadn't even known the ravine was more than a ditch in the earth until she drove them there. This should have been his decision.

"Yeah, your comments have been noted for the record, Curly," said Varric. Cullen stubbed out his cigarette angrily.

"I just don't understand," said Eleanor quietly.

"Neither do I," he said to her, putting his hand on her leg. "Neither do I."

* * *

Eleanor spent the rest of the day in the dining room, cleaning her gun. She figured she was going to need it. Her magic was no good. So the house smelled of gun oil, and newspapers littered the dining room table, but her weapon was clean.

Cullen had gone out to the barn, just to see that it really was empty, and it was. He stood there in the cool fall day, in a red hooded sweater Eleanor had bought for him, and wished it wasn't happening like this. Wished he wasn't so scared. He gathered up all of the bed sheets from the bunks where his troops had slept, made sure they hadn't left anything behind, and carried the dirty linens back to the house in a laundry basket he had found near the small kitchen in the barn.

He stopped on the porch and turned back around to look at the sky. Facing away from the ravine, he could almost imagine that none of this was happening. The sky was soft and blue, even if the air was colder than it had been since he'd arrived. Fat, white clouds, painted with a golden light, drifted past slowly, so slowly. A breeze blew and rustled the grasses, making a quiet white noise.

This place was beautiful. This place felt rare. Maybe it was just the things he had attached to it, but he didn't want this place to be overcome by the Blight - not that he wanted any place to have to go through that, but he didn't feel as though he would be able to get this one back once it was gone. All of a sudden, he felt like he wanted to cry.

The screen door swung open and shut behind him.

"Hey, you." It was Eleanor. Cullen set the basket down and turned to her. She was drying her hands in a dish cloth. She tucked the towel into her back pocket, and reached out, wrapping her arms around his neck. He smiled, putting his own arms around her waist, pulling her close.

"What's on your mind?" she asked him, resting her cheek against his shoulder.

"This place," he said.

"Hm?"

"I like it here," he said.

"Me too." She took a breath. "You… uh… you mean what you said?"

"About?"

"About fighting."

"El, I -"

"I know this isn't your home," she said, looking up at him with watery blue eyes. "I know this isn't how you wanted this. So if you don't want -"

"El. Listen to me. I made you a promise," he said, and brought his palms up to her back to cradle her. "Don't think for a moment I'm going to break it."

A single tear slid down her cheek.

"Hey. Don't start that again," he said quietly. "I'm still sore."

She laughed softly, sniffing back any other tears that threatened. He was too good.

"Me too," she admitted.

He pressed his hand to the side of her face and leaned down to kiss her. The wind picked up a bit and whipped her hair around her cheeks, around his neck. The air smelled like grass and dead leaves and a kind of cold that said that sooner than they thought, it would snow.

When their lips parted, he said, "I, uh," then he stopped, looked away from her, and said something else instead. "I got the laundry from the barn. I'll start this soon."

"Okay. You need me to show you..?"

He shook his head. "I've got it now."

"Alright. I'll start dinner," she said.

"Noodles?" he asked.

She smiled. "I can do that." Eleanor let him go and went back inside.

Cullen lit a cigarette and watched a subtle shift in color as the sun began to lower itself down to the horizon. This was all he wanted, he realized - no, not realized, always knew, somewhere in his mind. This quiet life. Watching the sun begin to set while he took care of things and someone helped him, made him dinner.

Someone he loved.

He should have told her.

* * *

 _Author's note:_ Wooooaaahhh, we're half-way theeere (WOOAAAAH LIVIN' ON A PRAY-AYER)

No but for real.

Only 31 more chapters left to go.


	32. As I'll Ever Be

Cullen had received letters from the Inquisitor and remaining members of the War Council, and even though he was still upset, he sat down after dinner to read them. Eleanor stood in the doorway, drying her hair with a towel.

"Why can't they ever send candy? Or presents? Or beer?"

He laughed, cheered up for the first time since he had started answering the mail. He was on the couch, hunched over the coffee table, an ink pen in his hand as he made notes in a spiral bound notebook, composing his thoughts before he made any replies.

"Oh, but they did," said Dorian, coming down the stairs.

"Huh?" Eleanor turned around.

"I wanted to give this to you earlier today, but it slipped my mind. And then I thought if I tried to while you were cleaning your gun, you might shoot me."

"Will it make me want to shoot you?"

"Well, I should hope not." He handed her the package he had in his arms. "It was a bit of a rush job, but I think you'll find it satisfactory. Harritt and Dagna do good work."

"You didn't," said Cullen from the couch.

"I did," and Dorian smiled, a simple, honest smile. "I'll go get the rest," he said, and disappeared again.

"Who are Herritt and Dagna?" Eleanor asked, sitting beside Cullen, who moved his papers aside for Eleanor to set her package down on the table.

"You're about to find out."

Eleanor reached out and pulled the string that held the brown paper shut. The bow gave way, and the strings bounced open. She pulled away the paper, and in her hands, held something blue and shimmering.

"Oh," said Eleanor, and picked the robe up by its shoulders. The body of it was blue, dark blue, and made of a material she couldn't quite place; some kind of silk, but softer than she'd ever felt, and tougher too. The inside was lined with a soft, warm dark grey. The shoulders were a white leather, smooth and entirely unblemished. The color was pure and didn't look dyed, just looked as white as snow. The neck was high and buttoned in the back with what looked like a pearl, but might actually have been a silvery-white metal. Attached to that, hanging down the back of the robe, was a heavy hood, so broad it looked like she could pull it down over her nose. The waist of the robe was cinched with a sash of the same white material, over which hung a little button-closure pouch, and on the chest in shining white embroidery was an eye, an eye like a sunburst, with a sword driven through it.

She turned to look at Cullen, and he smiled, but something about his expression was uneasy.

In the bottom of the parcel were leggings and gloves, and a harness of some kind, made of the same white leather as the shoulders and sash. There was a heavy dark blue cloak as well, made out of something more like velvet, but she couldn't imagine that it actually was; rain would destroy velvet. And then she reminded herself that it didn't matter, that even these objects were probably infused with magic.

Dorian came back again, setting something up against the stairs before coming into the living with a pair of tall white boots, boots that looked like they would lace up to her knees. Small embellishments on them were silver and blue. He set them down next to the coffee table.

"Compliments of the Inquisitor," Dorian said.

"Oh, Dorian. It's… beautiful, it's all beautiful. I… thank you."

Dorian smiled, looking smug as he said, "There's one more thing."

"Oh, you didn't," said Cullen wearily, as Dorian reached around the door frame to the stairs.

"But I did."

In his hands was a staff, a glistening white staff, made of some supple wood, whose top had been skillfully carved into a spiral cage, and resting in the middle of the cage was a polished black-blue orb of stone, or metal. The staff stood about four and a half feet high, too small for Dorian, but perfectly proportioned for Eleanor.

Eleanor stood, clutching the robe to her chest with her left arm, and she reached out and took the staff with her right hand. It was exactly narrow enough for her to wrap her fingers around it, and it felt like it weighed absolutely nothing, but in a satisfying way. It felt cold. It felt warm. She gave her hand a squeeze around the wood to feel the grain, looked into the dark metal.

"Everite," said Dorian, "Fade-Touched."

"You think?" said Cullen.

"I do," Dorian answered.

"Hm?" Eleanor turned back to Cullen, clinging to her staff and robe. He shook his head with a dismissive frown.

"Well," said Pavus, nodding his head toward the stairs. "You know where to find me if you have any questions."

"Thank you, Dorian."

"The least I could do," and he went back upstairs. He left Eleanor standing there, her face plastered with a smile. She felt like a kid on Christmas.

"Do you want to try them on?" Cullen asked. He didn't sound enthusiastic.

"No," Eleanor said. "I can wait." She propped the staff up against the bookshelf and folded the robe, setting it back on top of the brown paper, bundling it all together before moving it to the side with her boots. She sidled up to Cullen, saying softly, "Why put them on just to take them off?"

Now Cullen smiled, and he took his attention fully away from the letters before him to sling an arm over her shoulders and pull her close. "Oh, it's gonna be like that, is it?"

"It absolutely is," she assured him. He kissed her on the cheek.

"Can you wait until I finish these up?"

"Can you?" she said with a wink, and rose from the couch. "I'm gonna put these things away. Come to bed whenever you're ready." Tucking her staff under one arm, dividing the garments up between her hands, she went off to her room, closing the door gently behind her.

Come to bed. He liked the sound of that.

* * *

Eleanor cinched the sash around her waist and reached for her staff. She opened the drawer of her wardrobe, where inside a mirror hung, and she looked at herself. She couldn't believe she was looking at herself.

Eleanor was not the kind of person who would use words like "noble" or "commanding" to describe herself, her small frame, brown hair, awkwardly-tanned skin - a farmer's tan, indeed. But draped in shades of blue and white, hair braided firmly against the back of her head, she looked… impressive. The cloak, she found, attached with small hooks to the leather pauldrons of the robe, and to a small spot beneath the draping fabric of the hood. She pulled the cloak around her, pulled the hood up over her head, and reached for her staff, which she'd had propped up against the wardrobe. The mysterious leather harness that at first she couldn't figure actually gave her a way to attach the staff to her back and retrieve it easily, so long as she pushed her cloak to one side. But for now, she wanted to hold it, wanted to rest her weight against it.

Pursing her lips, she looked up at the polished globe of - what had Dorian called it? Everite? Fade-Touched Everite, whatever that meant. She could suss out the words, knew what the Fade was, of course, but how the Fade could touch a metal and what that imbued the metal with, she didn't know. She just knew that two conflicting sensations seemed to fill her body when she grasped the staff: a cold that really was just cold, the feeling of being outside on a brisk winter's day, not unpleasant, perhaps even playful, and a strange warmth, but this was not warmth like heat, not warmth like the summer sun, but warmth like a swelling of joy, or like waking up and feeling well-rested.

She bit the edge of her lower lip and looked in the mirror, not at herself, but behind her. The door was shut. Twiddling the gloved fingers on her left hand, she tightened the grip on the staff with her right. Should she do this? Dorian would take her out to practice in a bit; that's why she had gotten dressed, dressed up. But she wanted to experience this by herself, this first surge of channeled power. She had no idea what it would be like, what it would do, but it should be hers, she decided.

Filling her lungs with air, Eleanor reached down into that strange, glowing place inside her chest, her belly, the place that a doctor would not find if he cut her open from neck to navel but was so irrefutably there, she reached down and for an instant, just an instant, let the mana swallow her up. It came over her like a choking, grasping thing, held her body, her limbs, her very cells in its embrace, and changed her into a powerful thing. But she stopped it. She pressed into it, pressed around it, knotted it up into something she could control, and she sent that burn, that tingle down her arm and slowly, slowly into the staff.

The everite began to glow.

Eleanor gasped. It was such a simple act, this night-black orb now emitting a dim blue light, but it was her simple act. She had done it. She had taken control of a physical object and made it her own. Changed it.

"Just a little more," she said under her breath. She had seen Dorian's staff in action, had seen it shoot dripping missiles of fire, had seen it ignite huge crescent-shaped swaths of land. She didn't think her staff was the same, didn't think she was at risk of setting anything alight, but whatever it did, however it worked, she didn't want to chance it. She just wanted to know.

Eleanor funnelled a little more of herself through the wood as though she were electric and it was conductive, and she heard a faint tinkling, a cracking, a sound that reminded her of something, a sound she knew but couldn't quite place until the air around her grew cold, so cold, and Eleanor recalled the sound of icicles hanging from eves in winter, disturbed by gusts of wind, singing and chiming in their distress. It was the sound of cold. Of ice. Of winter.

She withdrew quickly, sending her mana back into the place from whence it came, and the staff remained cold in her hands, but the air around her heated back up.

There was a knock at her door.

"Come in," she said, knocking the hood down from her head and quickly shutting the wardrobe door.

"Well, aren't you just a sight to behold," said Dorian, and there was nothing wry, nothing sarcastic in his voice. There was laughter, there was almost always laughter, but it was not double edged. It was honest.

Eleanor smiled, filled with pride.

Dorian closed the door and approached her, lowering his voice. "I have one last thing for you," and he reached out, not handing the items to her, but unbuttoning the little pouch on her sash and slipping something small, something glass - somethings, she realized, little glass tubes clinking against each other - into the bag. "I want to tell you, it's not that I don't trust Cullen. I trust the man with my very life. And it has been a long time since he was a part of the Order. But… perhaps don't let him know that I gave you that."

"I don't," began Eleanor, before it hit her. "...this is lyrium?" Somewhere in her head now, there sang a dim song in a language she had never heard before, though maybe it wasn't language at all. Her eyelids drooped and she reached down to the pouch at her side.

"Exactly," Dorian said, and pulled Eleanor's grasping hands into his own. He couldn't imagine what it was like to become a mage as such a comparatively late age, could imagine even less what it was like to come into contact with lyrium after having grown up in a world entirely without it. Dorian had never known a world without lyrium; it even existed in the Fade, even in the places untouched by spirits and dreamers, which were few and far between. But here on this plane, there was no such thing. He wondered if perhaps it would have some unexpected effect on Eleanor, but she might need it today, would definitely need it in the future. There was no point in keeping her from it until the last moment, when she might need it and not be able to handle exposure. Cullen might accuse Dorian of being rash, but in truth he wanted nothing less than to have to force Eleanor into training abilities that should be allowed to come naturally. But they were on a bit of a tight time budget, given that Cullen wanted them in the ravine in a matter of days, wanted them down there before the Archdemon surfaced again. Dorian knew it would be better to get this intelligence to the Grey Wardens sooner rather than later, but he felt unready. Or maybe he just felt like he didn't want to die, not quite yet.

But while Dorian hadn't been expected to head into the ravine, he at least was not entirely unprepared. Here was Eleanor who was only months into the knowledge that the Blight existed, that the Fade split her world and the next - though that one was admittedly new to Dorian too - barely weeks into knowing that she could harness that power and feed it back into the world. And the Inquisition had said, "Well, she's a mage, send her down there," and Dorian had said, "She can't even summon enough mana to knock an enemy down," and the Inquisition had said, "You said she did exactly that," and he tried to explain that it was a fluke, and that it had exhausted her, and they said, "Train her. You're running out of time. And we're taking away your soldiers." And Dorian had said something that had started with an "F" and ended in a "U" and they had sent him to Dagna and Herritt and gotten robes for Eleanor that were beautiful and a staff that might be way beyond her and he had sighed and taken them back through the Breach. Because what else was he going to do. He had fought them for days.

But he had helped design the staff. He had insisted on everite. He thought Eleanor might not be the offensive type at all. And he was going to test that notion.

"Are you ready?"

"As I'll ever be," Eleanor answered.

He started to walk back toward the door, but with his hand on the knob, he turned and looked at Eleanor, sizing her up from head to foot. He gave her an approving nod.

"You look… lovely," he said, and went ahead of her, into the hallway and out the door.


	33. Besides Darkspawn and Impending Death

Dorian wasn't entirely sure his methods were sound, but this was the easiest way to find out if his suspicions were correct.

He had grabbed two cushions from the wicker furniture on the porch and flung them onto the ground a few paces apart. He sat on one, his own staff laid down beside him on the earth, and indicated to the other as Eleanor approached, a few dozen paces behind him.

"Are we having a pow-wow?" she asked, as she hitched up her robes and plunked down on the pillow. "I assume these aren't machine-washable," she said, brushing grass off of the dark blue fabric, her own staff laid now at her right side.

Dorian didn't answer, but retrieved a small dagger, what seemed to be the Theodosian equivalent of a utility knife, from his pocket. Eleanor didn't know, but in that same pocket were several vials of a thick, red liquid. Just in case. He too had a thick cloak draped over his shoulders, displeased already with the amount of chill in the air, but he had it carefully pushed away from his arms.

Her powers had been strongest the last time she was in a state of panic, and Dorian hated to do this to her, but he considered this the accelerated course.

"Alright, Eleanor." He took a deep breath, and pushed out a nervous sigh. "Get to work." He raised the dagger and plunged it into his wrist, slicing up to the inside of his elbow. His face remained stoic, but he made a noise through his nose. "Fasta vass…" he mumbled.

Eleanor's eyes grew wide and she reached out, grabbing the dagger from Dorian's hand, slick with blood, and she shouted, "What are you doing!" She pulled off her gloves and threw them to the ground and put her hands on top of Dorian's arm, squeezing the wound shut and applying pressure to staunch the bleeding. "Are you out of you mind! Do you know what kind of nerve damage you could do to yourself? God damn it, Dorian, what are you trying to prove!"

Sucking back the pain, a slim smile formed on Dorian's face though much of the color had washed away from his cheeks. It wasn't the most serious wound, but it was sure as hell painful. Or it had been, until, even as Eleanor ranted, crushing the two halves of his arm back together and trying to tug him back off of the ground and into the house to get bandages or rubbing alcohol or something, a heat flooded out of her body and into his, and first the pain went away, and then the bleeding stopped, and the skin began to knit itself back together.

"And I swear to god, I..." Her speech slowed, and Eleanor's lips gaped like a fish's, and she seemed unable to find the next word in her sentence. Her stomach lurched and she fell back to the cushion, hard. Her hands fell away from Dorian's arm, and though both mages were stained with blood, an onlooker would be hard-pressed to find the source of the gore.

But Eleanor looked as though she might faint, and so Dorian rose to his knees slowly, still a bit woozy but otherwise completely unharmed, and he put one hand on Eleanor's back, letting the other one delve into the pouch on her hip, and he withdrew a vial of the singing blue mineral. Uncorking the vial with his thumb, he brought it to her lips, and like a child suddenly presented with something sweet, Eleanor hungered for it, drinking greedily until Dorian pulled the lyrium away. He didn't think she would need the whole thing; her reserves were still so small, and so he let her have half before he released her, plucked the cork up off of the ground, and sealed the vial once more.

Eleanor put a hand to her chest as the lyrium flooded her, fighting for air, put the other on the cold, dry ground to steady herself, and made small, sobbing noises, though no tears fell from her eyes.

"Holy mother of god," she groaned.

Dorian sighed with relief. "It seems as though I was correct," he said, "as usual," and showed her his completely undamaged arm.

There was a brief expression of shock on Eleanor's face, and then her eyes narrowed at him, lips pouting. "That was mean."

"You're not the one who just potentially maimed yourself as an experiment."

She frowned, but said nothing more.

"Do you feel well enough to stand?" he asked her, getting to his feet and offering his hand to her.

She took it, confessing, "I feel… incredible."

There would be time for a lecture on the dangers of lyrium later, he decided. "Come on, then," he helped her up. "Let's practice your staff work."

* * *

"Look, Curly, I'm sorry about all this," said Varric, standing at the top of the stairs and calling down them as Cullen fought to get the last load of laundry from the barn in the washer. He'd seen Eleanor fit the most enormous bundles of fabric into this blasted machine, but he swore under his breath as he found himself unable to get two bed sets in evenly. Four sheets. Four pillowcases. What was he doing wrong?

"You have nothing to apologize for, Varric," Cullen called back up the stairs, more anger in his voice than he felt towards the dwarf as he struggled with a fitted sheet that had become ensnared around the agitator. "Andraste's flaming…" he cursed quietly.

"Well, I'm not sure anyone would buy that," said Varric.

Smart-ass, Cullen thought, as he finally shoved the last of the linens into the machine and reached for the soap.

"I do know that this isn't exactly your preferred environment," Cullen said, adding the washing liquid and slamming the lid of the machine shut, flipping the knob to "hot" and starting the cycle. Rubbing his hands on his jeans, he thumped heavily back up the narrow wooden stairs.

"I've been thinking about that, actually," said Varric, standing aside to allow Cullen back into the kitchen. "There aren't any dwarves here. Never were."

Cullen signalled for Varric to go on as the commander sat down hard in a chair.

"So what is down there? Besides a load of darkspawn and our impending deaths, I mean. There aren't any thaigs. Aren't any roads. Can't be." Varric crossed his arms and leaned against the table. "Can there?"

Cullen shrugged. "Maybe just caves. El says there was only a dry riverbed before this. Maybe the darkspawn came through the Breach seven years ago and have been tunnelling ever since."

Varric lowered one eyebrow at Cullen as though he were upset the commander were missing something so obvious.

"What, Varric," he asked, exasperated.

"Then where did the Archdemon come from?"

"The same place?" Cullen said, "From Thedas?"

"Did it just… Fly through the Breach? Was it already an Archdemon then? Or did the Old God come through and encounter the Blight separately?" Varric frowned, pulled himself up into a seat, and shook his head. "Something's not right, here, Curly. This whole thing seems a little too… easy."

"Easy?" Cullen laughed, but there was no humor in the sound. "Easy! They're sending four of us into a crack in the earth filled with darkspawn! Four! One of us can't even fight -"

"But she can heal."

Varric and Cullen looked up to the pair of mages who had come through the doorway. Eleanor's face was simultaneously flushed and colorless. Dorian looked tired, but proud.

"And," he went on, "she can fight."

"A little," Eleanor said. Her voice was quiet, shaky. She leaned on her staff.

Cullen looked at Eleanor, all clad in her robes, looking like something from his past. His jaw worked uncertainly, the picture of her pushing against Varric's words in his mind.

"Dorian?" Cullen said, rising from his chair, "A word?"

Cocking his eyebrow, the mage nevertheless complied, and Cullen put his hand out in front of Dorian, indicating that Pavus could lead. Dorian pulled his cloak around him once more and headed back out onto the porch.

Eleanor collapsed into a chair, still clinging to her staff as her body slumped a bit. She hadn't had any more of the lyrium. But oh, how she had wanted it. Dorian told her the staff could use her power, but had power of its own, and she could channel that, not use up her own reserves as she fired bursts of frost, of ice onto the lawn. Dorian had been behind her, his hands around her wrists, telling her not to hold it too tightly, to let it have freedom in her hands; it would listen to her. She just had to command it. She could use her mana to instruct the staff without having to expend it. It took her several tries to find this balance, and even when she did, the control that she had to exert wore her out, left her breathing hard, heavy.

And it was incredible. She wanted to go on forever. The rush she got after realizing she had healed what had seemed to be the incredibly serious wound that Dorian had inflicted upon himself was intense, the rush from that and the lyrium made her want to do cartwheels on the lawn even in her exhaustion. Dorian told her of powerful healers who could raise the fallen, so long as the last spark of life remained within them.

He specifically told her not to try this.

She told him she hoped she never had to.

He told her she would.

So many thoughts poured through her head like sand, interrupted suddenly when Varric spoke up.

"So Farm Girl, they've told me a lot about you."

"They have?" She patted herself down, looking for her cigarettes, when she realized that Cullen still had them in his back pocket. She cursed quietly, too tired in the moment to go to the freezer or to her bedroom to get more, so she simply sat, adjusting her grip on her staff, clinging to it as though for safety.

She gave the dwarf the once-over. He was strangely handsome, all grizzled and quick with his words. He wore jewelry, gold rings in his ears, a long chain around his neck, and his clothing seemed fine and covered with embellishments. And at the same time, the dwarf gave the distinct impression that he couldn't give less of a fuck about any of it. She liked that, his combination of brutishness and refinement. It made her smile.

"You're the talk of the town, Eleanor. The Inquisitor didn't know there would be any mages on this side."

"To be fair," said Eleanor, "neither did the mages on this side."

Varric laughed, pointing a brown-gloved finger at her. "Hah! I like you."

She was glad.

"So tell me," he said, sitting back, at incredible ease, "You've lived here your whole life?"

Eleanor nodded. "Almost thirty years," she said.

"Have you ever - ever - seen anything in that ravine before we got here?"

The question might have seemed odd, but Eleanor was so far past odd she had come out clean on the other side. She shook her head in answer. "Nothing. Never. I mean, I don't make a habit of climbing in old, dry riverbeds, but I've driven past it. The highway goes over it, but that section's more shallow anyway. The part we've seen the darkspawn come from was always the deepest point to begin with, so maybe…" but she left the thought unfinished. "But no. Nothing. Never."

Varric twiddled a ring on his pinky with the thumb of the same hand. "Does that seem, I don't know, weird to you?"

She rolled her eyes in an exaggerated way. "Weird? Fuckin' look at me," she said. "Six months ago I worked my ass off on this farm, picked up whatever small jobs I could to make ends meet. The most magical thing that happened around her was finding an extra beer in the fridge when you thought you'd drunk 'em all the night before."

Varric let out a loud chuckle. "I really like you."

She shook her head by way of acceptance. "Well, shit," she said with a smile. "But… I don't know. I don't even know how to tell what's weird anymore. But apparently if you've got a wicked papercut I can patch you up with nothing more than sheer force of will, so that's handy, I guess."

Varric rubbed his wide jaw with his hand. "Farm Girl, you're gonna do just fi-"

"She will not be fighting, Pavus, do you understand me? That's an order!"

"And how do you plan on making sure of that, Commander? Are you going to put a big sign on your back that says, 'Stab me, not her?'"

"Dorian, I swear to all that is sacred -"

"Cullen. Look. I know you like her. But you have to face reality: If she goes down there, she's going to have to know how to fight. She's going to have to know how to fight or she's going to die. So you either allow me to teach her, or you take her down there to die!" There was a pause. "Or you leave her behind."

The voices of the two men on the porch came through the screen door with more and more clarity as their disagreement came to a head. Eleanor rose, almost without thinking, and walked away from Varric, heading down the hallway to the screen door. She could make out the mage and the commander through the rough mesh, two dark figures a few feet away.

"You're not leaving me behind," she said through the screen.

Cullen jerked open the door to see her more clearly. "El, I'm sorry, I -"

"You're not leaving me behind," she repeated.

Cullen's face fell and he pushed back through the door. "Eleanor, please, listen to me. I don't -"

"I'll stay as much out of harm's way as I can," she allowed, "but Dorian is right. If I go down there, I should know how to fight. And you're not leaving me here. This is my home. And we're going to fight. Remember? We? Us?"

Sighing, he reached out to her, and despite her belligerance, she let him hold her. "I know you want to protect your home," he said, pushing little stray hairs away from her eyes, working them back into her braid with gentle fingers.

"Cullen," she said firmly. "I'm not a child. Fuck," she said, looking to the floor. "I'm still going to take the gun," as though she were angry or offended that she still needed it, and if she were honest, she did not intend to fire a shot.

He pressed his lips thin, knowing this was a losing battle. He let his hands slide down to her hips, his arm brushing the little pouch on her sash. The vials clinked in a deafening way.

Eleanor's eyes darted to Dorian who was holding open the screen door and then back to Cullen. His expression had entirely changed. He let her go.

"Mages," he said with a low growl, and completely dismissed her, Dorian too, but especially her, with a single word. He turned on his heel and walked away from her, pushed past Dorian, went out to the porch, and kept walking.

Dorian came back inside, and watched Eleanor watch Cullen walk away. "Let him go," he said, putting a reassuring hand on Eleanor's shoulder.

"Oh, I planned on it," she said, a strength in her voice stoked by the fires of anger. "How can he just -" but she cut herself off. "Whatever." She leaned her staff against the wall near the coat rack and said, "Look, I'm gonna… change," she looked down at the robes she now felt ridiculous in, holding her arms out at her sides as though unwilling to touch them to herself, "and then we can talk about what the plan is, since our commander is currently missing in action." She shook her head, touching one hand to her braid, putting the other on her hip. "I just mean, is it just him, or are all templars like that? With the grumbling and the 'mages'..."

Dorian sighed sadly. "Unfortunately, he's one of the better ones."

"Jesus Christ," she said, yanking open her bedroom door."It's no wonder you people had a fucking rebellion."

Varric, from the kitchen, put a hand on his forehead and laughed until he was breathless.


	34. It's Worked for Me for Years

As Eleanor was pulling her shirt over her head, there came a voice at her door. "Ellie?"

"Come in, Dorian," she said, unwinding her hair from her tight braid. He came in just as she was scratching at her head like an animal, trying to work the tightest plaits down, leaving her hair a mass of kinks and waves.

He leaned in the doorway and said, "Don't be too angry with Cullen."

Eleanor cocked her head him. "But he -"

Dorian put up his hands. "I know, I know. He can be a bit of an ass when it comes to mages. I've been putting up with him for years. But," Dorian let his hands fall, seeming exhausted, "he doesn't mean any harm by it. And trust me when I say that there are plenty who do. He'd fight to the death to protect an innocent mage. Any innocent person, some, not so innocent." Dorian shook his head, looking at his boots. "Cullen has seen… a lot. You can ask Varric about it; he was there, though believe about one-fourth of what that dwarf tells you. Look, Eleanor, my point is, Cullen might still be hung up on some things because of whatever bullshit the Order put him through. He's better than that, though. I sincerely believe that. And he loves you. He's just trying to protect you, even if he's doing it in the most half-assed way possible."

Eleanor rolled her eyes and made her way to her nightstand for cigarettes.

"I mean it, Eleanor."

"I know you do, Dor, and that's why it's so frustrating. I can't fucking stay mad at him." It was true. In just the time it had taken her to remove and hang up her robe, her accouterments in the wardrobe, she'd already found herself wishing that Cullen would come back. "What a jerk," she said, and she said it with an inflection of nothing but respect, of endearment.

Dorian's face gave half a grin. "Now there's a feeling I know well."

* * *

They sat down at the table with Varric. Cullen's papers were still confined to his bedroom, the bedroom in which he had not spent the previous two nights. Eleanor hoped a bit that it would stay that way. But no one was willing to go digging through the commander's things, though no one felt like they were particularly missing out, either. No one knew what was down in that ravine; any information given to them by the Inquisition would be based on former Blights, all having taken place in Thedas, and would probably be meaningless. Eleanor couldn't read them either way, the strange angular writing with its weird dips and curls a mystery to her. She should probably ask about that one day, but right now she felt it couldn't be of less importance.

"Alright, Varric. You've been in the Deep Roads," began Dorian.

Varric shook his head, put up his hands. "I mean, I have, Sparkler, but I don't think it's gonna matter much. And unless we're within about two leagues of Orzammar, my knowledge comes entirely from panicked excursions to find a thaig that ended up dismantling a pretty good deal of the Chantry. Entirely by accident, you understand," he added in a confidential manner to Eleanor.

"So, what you're saying is, we go down and hope for the best?" she asked him.

"Hey, it's worked for me for years," Varric offered, "strictly speaking."

Dorian gave a deep sigh, drumming his fingers impatiently on the table.

"Dorian? Something to add?" Eleanor said, sitting back in her chair and turning her lighter - not her good black one, Cullen had walked off with that; a skinny little blue plastic one - over and over across her knuckles.

"Until we've got a map of the ravine, we've got nothing. We don't know how many darkspawn are down there, we don't know where the Archdemon is waiting; we're the experiment. We go down there, the Inquisition sees if we live. If we do, we try to bring back a map. Try to tell them just how many little beasties they're going to have to face." He pursed his lips. "We've got nothing. That's the whole point of this."

No one said anything, because Dorian was right. Unless Cullen had had something meaningful to add, something that the three of them for whatever reason would have been unable to suss out on their own, this was pointless.

"What do we do if one of us dies?"

Eleanor said it so casually that it struck Dorian in the chest like a fist. He was glad Cullen was not here to see the completely unaffected expression on Eleanor's face.

"We go on," said Varric.

Eleanor nodded. "Alright. We go on."

* * *

She heard Cullen come in well past midnight. She had been lying in bed. A book was pressed against her chest, but she hadn't managed a single page. She'd managed a few drinks, though, and she laid there, staff at her side, twiddling the half-empty vial of lyrium in her hands, listening to the song it sang in her head. But when she heard the screen door open, the heavy front door squeak open and swish shut, she froze, waiting to see what the man would do. Her door was not completely closed; she'd left it open a crack for Swiffer to pace in and out, and Eleanor had no intention yet of falling asleep, even though she was tired, even though she should. But she waited, until she heard his feet go not to her room, the few paces from the front door to hers, but went upstairs, slowly, awkwardly. Something about the rhythm of his steps was off. Eleanor was suddenly glad her house was a hundred-odd years old. She could follow him with her ears, and so she did, sitting up straight now and putting the lyrium in the nightstand, pushing the book onto the comforter.

She could hear him in his bedroom, fumbling, looking for something maybe, and then heard him leave, going to the bathroom. He slammed the door, and she heard the sink faucet go on at full-tilt. Maybe he'd been drinking too. She wouldn't fault him for it; how could she?

But then Swiffer darted into her bedroom, jumped up on the bed. The cat turned in a little circle, meeping and mrooping until she was certain she had Eleanor's attention, and then dashed away. Rolling her eyes, Eleanor humored the feline, getting to her feet - a little more unsteady than she'd realized - and pulling her door open the rest of the way. She flicked on the hall light, made her way to the handrail, and pulled her way onto the first step, the second, the third. Cullen may have gone heavily up the stairs, but she would at least try to be quiet; she assumed Dorian and Varric were asleep in their rooms, or else doing the same thing she had been doing. Either way, there was no reason to disturb them.

Swiffer waited for her at the top of the stairs, meowing sadly.

"Hey, little girl, what's wrong?" Eleanor asked, as she stood on the second step from the top to look the kitten in the eye, as though Swiffer could tell her something, and Eleanor would be damned if the cat wasn't trying. Swiffer went to the bathroom door and began to paw against it, water still running inside.

"I know Cullen's home," Eleanor told the cat, as though this would make a difference, but Swiffer's paw went from the white door to a splotch just near the threshold on the floor, something dark and out of place in the dim light that filtered up from the hall.

"Hey, kitty, don't touch that," Eleanor cautioned as she finally climbed the top two stairs. She didn't knock, but leaned against the door and said softly, "Hey, Cullen? Are you alright?"

The sound of water was her only answer, and then something soft hitting the floor.

"Cullen, talk to me." She momentarily considered that maybe he was in the bathroom for a more, well, conventional reason, and she started to feel silly even as Swiffer pawed softly still at the sill, until she heard him gasp and smack the edge of the sink with his fist.

"Alright, look, I'm coming in," she said. "Three… two…"

She heard him fumble with the doorknob and ceased her countdown, not knowing if he was trying to open it for her or lock her out. But the door swung inward slowly, and Swiffer, afraid or satisfied, bounded back down the stairs.

Cullen's face was white as a sheet. Bare-chested, blood ran from his nose, and from a split lip, and at first she thought that he got in a bar fight, and that these superficial wounds were enough for her to chastise him while she covered him with Neosporin. But then he took his hand away from the doorknob and backed up to let her in, and she saw in the bathroom mirror that his back was in ruins.

Claw marks went from shoulder to shoulder, from shoulder to hip, and she saw shreds of skin hanging from the musculature of his body. Her hands went to her mouth, and he grabbed the sink for support, the edge of the shower box, his hands slipping as they were slick with blood.

He saw the question in her eyes, and answered weakly, "I went to the ravine." And then he trembled, and started to fall.

Suddenly sober, Eleanor caught him in her arms, but his weight was too much for her to stay upright, so she lowered to her knees as slowly as she could, but they still landed with a resounding crack on the tile floor. She ignored her own pain, blocked it out when she heard Cullen hiss with his own. There was so much blood. It was running in rivulets down his sides, staining the denim of his jeans, pooling in little puddles on the floor.

She had to do something.

Cullen tried to keep talking. "They must have smelled me - I didn't see them until - I didn't try to fight, El, I promise, I tried to run -"

"Hush, Cullen," she pleaded. Should she wash his wounds first? Wash her own hands? Was there time? His hands on her back were cold through her t-shirt, and she didn't know if it was from being out in the night so long or from loss of blood, but when she put her hands on his cheeks and saw how heavy his eyes were, how slow his words, she decided she couldn't wait. Eleanor put her hands just over the mangled flesh of his back and breathed as slowly, as deeply as she could despite her panic.

When he felt the healing warmth begin to spread through his wounds, he hissed at her, "Don't, El. It's… too much."

"To hell with that, Cullen," she said, and took another deep breath, closing her eyes.

"El, no," he insisted, but his voice was quiet. She ignored him, keep breathing, kept pulling mana from deep inside of her, slowly, carefully, feeling herself coming up on the bottom of her pool all too soon. She paused, flexed her fingers as though forcing heat, actual heat, into her hands would help. She inhaled. Exhaled. Inhaled again. Reached for her power and felt a little more put her hands back over his torn skin, watched some of the surface damage begin to pull itself back together. She felt his muscles relax, knew she must be at least taking his pain away.

But there was nothing more for her to draw from. She'd left the lyrium downstairs. There was nothing more, but she dug inside of herself, feeling her own breath growing shallow, her own heartbeat speeding up, forcing the spell to continue, fueled by something that might have been the lasts reserves of her mana, might have been the Fade, and she heard Cullen's voice, stronger now, and he insisted, "El, stop. You have to stop."

And then there was a sharpness in her vision, a painful realness that threatened to consume her, began to overtake her, and the world went black.


	35. I'm Glad You Came Back

She came to minutes, maybe seconds, later, her skin stained in blood, and for a moment she panicked until she remembered it wasn't hers, and then she panicked again as her hands scrabbled for Cullen and couldn't find him, and she sat up, fast, too fast, and her dinner lurched into her throat and she forced it back down. But now she saw Cullen's bare feet and and jeans, his legs, and he sat on the floor next to her, leaned up against the right-hand wall, smoking a cigarette and flicking ashes into the shower.

"You're going to kill yourself, Ellie," he said, breathing smoke up at the ceiling. His nose and lip were still caked in blood, but she couldn't see his back. She reached out to touch him, to see how hurt he still was, and fell back down again, the room spinning around her. "I'm sorry," he said. "I had to do it."

She swallowed hard, her forehead on the floor, hair pooling around her like Cullen's blood and weakly asked, "What did…" her voice unsteady, her mind reeling behind her eyes.

He took another hard draw on the cigarette. "I purged your magic. You'll be fine in a couple of minutes."

She choked, laid down on her side. Her whole body felt cold, strange.

Cullen's hard expression shifted, and he licked blood off of his lip, pinched his cigarette out, and flicked it into the wastebasket. His whole body was still sore, but her magic had reduced the gashes on his back to little more than welts. It was more than she should have been able to do. He scootched toward Eleanor and pulled her into his lap, brushing her hair away from her face and pressing her cheek to his chest. Her arms reached out for him.

"You're okay?" she mumbled even as little tears of nausea streaked her face.

Not, "Why would you do that?" Not, "How could you?" Not, "I'm going to faint, I'm going to throw up, you shithead templar, how could you take my magic from me, even for minutes, seconds?"

But, "You're okay?"

He hated himself, and he smiled. "Better than ever."

"Okay. Good." Her wobbling eyes searched the bathroom. "There's blood everywhere."

"I'll clean it up."

"Mm," she neither agreed nor disagreed, but sat up on her own now, feeling mana coming back into her body, restoring her balance. How had she lived without this? How did anyone? And that Cullen could just - just take it away… It was a terrible thought. A terrifying one.

Her face was coated on one side with his blood where she had fallen, lain. Her arm, too. The whole floor was slick with it. Cullen lifted her into a sitting position, rose himself, turned the shower on hot, tested it with his hand until he found a comfortable temperature. Pushing shut the bathroom door, he reached out to her, "Help you up?"

She nodded and rose slowly, first to her knees, and then to her feet. She pointed at the cabinet beneath the sink. "There are black towels under there," and as she stripped, Cullen retrieved two of them and hung them over the bar next to the shower. Down to nothing, Eleanor stepped cautiously into the shower box, reaching out her hand for Cullen to join her.

He suppressed a stupid grin, unable to say no.

* * *

In the hot spray, after washing the sticky blood from her limbs, her hair, she checked Cullen from head to foot, promising not to heal him if she found any other wounds, but there were none to be found. He used a bar of soap to wipe the crusty scabs from his face and it stung, but the sensation was almost welcome. As the last of the pinkish water swirled down the drain, he reached out for her and just held her for a moment, breathing in the steam and the smell of the soap and the tang of blood from just beyond the glass shower door.

"I'm glad you came back," Eleanor said.

Cullen laughed dryly. "Me too." He kissed her and knew they were both too tired for anything more than that. He turned off the water and popped open the door, reaching for a towel to offer her. "Go to bed," he instructed. "I'll clean this up. Meet you there in a few?"

She nodded, wrapping the towel around her, and reached for the bathroom door. "Don't worry too much about it. I'll take care of the rest in the morning."

"El?" he stopped her.

"Hm?" she turned back.

He said, "Thank you," but he wanted to say, "I love you," and thought, "You are too powerful for your own good and you are going to die."

"Anytime," she said, turning away from him, "except for how about ever again."

Well, he couldn't argue with that.

She padded softly down to the bedroom, Swiffer winding around her feet like an assassin on the stairs. Eleanor pushed her staff and her book off of the bed, put the lyrium in the nightstand, crawled under the blankets without even bothering to dress, and waited. After a few moments that could have been minutes or could have been hours, she heard Cullen come in, close the door behind him, and slip under the blankets on the opposite side, clicking off the bedside lamp. As soon as she felt his warmth around her, she fell asleep.

* * *

Eleanor woke up surrounded by sunlight. Cullen was still asleep next to her, looking like he hadn't moved all night. The blankets still draped gracefully around him, almost entirely undisturbed. She glanced over to read the clock, but there was something fuzzy in her mind, there was something in the way. She reached out to move it - the ashtray? but Cullen made a sound beside her and when she turned over again, his nose and mouth were a sea of blood, spilling onto the blue of the pillow. A single red tear fell from his eye.

"Cullen?" but his name caught in her throat and she couldn't make a sound, could only reach out her hands to touch his face, the blood spilling between her fingers, and she tried to summon up her mana, but try as she might, nothing came. She could not heal him, and under her fingers his face was changing, changing into something black, something purple, something wet and slimy and horrible and hooded and it rose up next to her, rose over her, and it was black in the room, it was night, no, not night, there was something heavy and cold blotting out the sun, and the darkness was a part of her, squeezing her, crushing her, stealing her, stealing her very essence and she couldn't fight it, not with magic, not with her hands, and her chest was so tight she couldn't breathe, couldn't -


	36. Why Do I Get the Feeling

"Maker have mercy, Ellie, wake up, please!"

Cullen was shouting at her, holding her body tight against his chest, stroking her hair and kissing her forehead and telling her that he was here, he had her, she was safe, she was dreaming, but Eleanor just kept shaking and choking and gasping, and giving out little sighs and cries and her fists were balls, and he could feel magic bleeding from her skin. He didn't know if he should dispel it, do again to her what he had done last night, hated, or if he should just hold her until she awoke, comfort her.

But he didn't know what kind of a dream it was. Didn't know if it was all happening inside her mind, or in the Fade.

"Flames, Ellie, please wake up," he begged softly, and Eleanor gave one more violent shake and then fell still. The tingle of magic evaporated from her skin.

"El? Ellie," he laid her back down against the pillow. The sun was just cresting the horizon and in the orange morning light, her skin looked vivid, beautiful, despite its seeming lifelessness. Was this what she had meant by dreams? Was this what she had meant the whole time?

Cullen reclined, put his face next to hers, brushed her cheek with his hand and kissed it. "Maker's breath, Ellie, please." He could feel tears on the edges of his eyes. How long had he co-habitated with mages, that he had never seen this?

"Cul…"

"Ellie," he said quickly, and picked her up in his arms, pulling her close.

She pushed her face against his chest, wrapping her own arms around him, feeling raised welts on his back from the previous night. "I'm sorry," she said quietly.

"Sorry?"

"For scaring you…" she said weakly.

"No," he said, kissing her forehead. Her skin was hot now, as if all the life had flooded back into her in one burst. "I'm sorry I couldn't do anything."

She didn't answer, only laid still in his arms, reaching out to run a finger over his nose, his split lip.

"You have a black eye," she told him, touching the purple skin softly, then running her hand along his rough stubble. It was threatening to become a beard.

"I do?"

She nodded. "And your nose is crooked. I think it's broken." She lifted her face and kissed it. "You should probably fix it or it'll set that way."

"Wouldn't be the first time," he said, as though it were nothing, but his nose had always seemed straight to her before. She thought about reaching out to fix it, but the dream came back to her in flashes and a frown twitched on her lips. No, he could deal with his own broken nose, at least for now.

"What happened last night? At the ravine?"

He gave a disapproving look, mostly for himself, and sat up, pushing a pillow under his back. There was almost no pain. "I was stupid."

She propped herself up on her elbow, waiting for him to go on.

"It was getting dark. I knew I should turn back, but I was almost there, so I just kept walking. I thought I could just take a look, like we had on patrol a hundred times before. I didn't even get as close as we usually do. Not even as close as when you took me there. But it was dark; there was hardly a moon. I should have seen them, should have heard them, but before I knew it, they were on top of me. Four or five of them. One was a hurlock. I ran, Ellie. I ran as fast as I could, but one of them must have jumped me. It grabbed my sweatshirt, so I tore it off, but then it grabbed something else - I thought it was just my shirt, maybe even then it was my… me - it knocked me down, tore at my back. My face smashed against a rock, so I grabbed it and bashed the thing's fucking head in, chucked the rock at the rest of them. I must have gotten up and just kept running… I don't remember anything else, not until I was on the porch. It… it must have taken hours."

For how much blood had pooled on the bathroom floor, Eleanor couldn't even imagine how much of it Cullen had lost on the miles-long trek back from the ravine.

"I don't know what they were doing so far out," said Cullen.

"It's not the furthest they've been," said Eleanor, remembering the fight on the back acreage.

"No," he confessed, "it's not. But it worries me."

"When should we…"

"As soon as I'm recovered. It can't wait any longer. No, you've done all you can," he waved away the offer she was about to make. "I need to stretch. Need to work this out of my muscles." He rolled his shoulders, feeling the tightness of the newly-healed flesh.

Eleanor smiled at him. "I've got a few suggestions for that."

* * *

When they finally managed to get out of bed, and once Eleanor put the bloody clothes in the wash - switching over the sheets from yesterday into the dryer - Cullen recounted the previous night's events to Varric and Dorian, who had somehow not even stirred.

"What can I say, I'm a deep sleeper," Varric said.

"Why do I get the feeling that none of this bodes well for any of us?"

"I'm certain it doesn't," said Cullen, "but now it's obvious that we need to get down there - and get back out, so that we can send the Wardens in as soon as possible."

No one disagreed.

When they dispersed, Dorian pulled Eleanor aside. "You healed wounds like that?"

She looked him deep in his brown eyes. "I had to."

"Ellie… when we're down there -"

"I know. He already told me."

Dorian shook his head. "Alright, I… I absolutely cannot believe…"

"Believe me, Dor. Neither can I."

* * *

Eleanor found Cullen in the living room, looking over the bookcase. No, the photos on the bookcase. Pictures of Eleanor as a child. Pictures of her mother and father. Pictures of the farm, of old friends. Cullen's hand settled on one of Eleanor at about age seven, her brown hair pulled into two braids on either side of her head - Varric's nickname for her, Farm Girl, sprang instantly into Cullen's mind - and standing off to the side of her was a woman with the same blue eyes as Eleanor, but with flaming red hair and freckles that made her look probably about ten years younger than the woman actually was, and a man, tall and thin with Eleanor's brown hair and the stern look she got when she was trying to hold back a fit of laughter, a false seriousness that meant she was trying to save face. They had to be her parents.

Holding the framed photo in both hands, he kept his eyes on it as he asked, "Where is your family?"

"Dead," she said simply.

"Oh," Cullen quickly set the photo back down. "I -"

Eleanor shook her head. "Mom died… probably about three months after that picture was taken. Car accident. Her tire blew on a dirt road. She skidded on some gravel and into a telephone pole. I was… I was with her. Totally unharmed. Completely inexplicable. She died on impact. They tell me I walked from the accident all the way back home. I don't remember any of it. Don't remember the tire, the accident, none of it. I don't remember anything until her funeral. In my head it's like one day she was there, reading me stories, and the next day we put her in the ground. I'm not sure if that's better or worse, but there you have it."

She approached Cullen now and picked up the same picture he had been studying, the old thing, probably developed at a pharmacy with a little time and date stamp in the corner from a cheap camera, back when that was still a thing. It was entirely unworthy of the silver-gilded frame, and at the same time, it was so much more precious than that.

Her shoulder touched Cullen's arm as she went on. "Dad… Dad raised me from then on. God, he was an excellent father." She shook her head as though disbelieving and sniffed. "He got cancer - well, I guess he had cancer for a very long time and never knew it. He always took care of himself. Every once in a while he smoked a cigar. He hated it when I started smoking. Said it would kill me. Turns out he'd had lung cancer for years. Small-cell… I don't know if that means anything to you. Anyway, by the time he started feeling tired, started coughing, it was already extensive - it, um, it was already in both lungs, his lymph nodes, god, it was everywhere on the scans." She put down the photograph and wiped her nose with her fingers. "Said he probably got it from pesticides or some shit. There was nothing they could do. Not a fucking thing. They started him on radiation, on chemotherapy - nasty medicine, Cullen, medicine that kills the cancer, but it kills everything else too." Eleanor took a deep breath. "He didn't want to do it. Wanted to die naturally. I told him it might save him, so he did it." She closed her eyes. "He died a month later, and I…" Her eyelids fluttered, and little tears flicked from them and on to the glass of the photo. She sniffed hard now, wiped her eyes with her sleeve. "I think I killed him."

"El, you -"

"Don't, I know, I know. I did what I thought was best. I wanted him to do what the doctors wanted him to do. Maybe he would have died anyway; the cancer was already so advanced. It was just a matter of time."

And then she looked down.

She looked at her own hands.

Cullen could see the thought that darted across her mind, and he reached out and took her hands.

"A sickness like that… I don't think you would have been able to do anything anyway," it was a pathetic reassurance, but he had seen people with the same kind of illness that Eleanor described. Masses, growths, festering inside a body; and it was true: often times even the best healers could do nothing. It was a sickness that had to be removed, cut out. Eleanor nodded as though accepting this further piece of bad news, but he knew it was a thought that would linger. There was nothing he could do about that.

"Anyway," she said forcing the tears back, "that was a couple of years ago. And there's really been nobody since then." Eleanor let her hands slip from Cullen's grasp and balanced against the back of the couch. "How about you? Family?"

Cullen smiled, nodded. "Plenty. Mother and father, two sisters, one brother."

"Middle child?"

"How'd you guess?"

Eleanor shrugged. "You're reasonable. Logical."

Cullen laughed. "Mia is the oldest. Then me, then Branson, then Rosalie. And Branson has a son now, too; I guess he'd be about seven or eight."

"Big family," Eleanor said wistfully. "That's nice."

"I should write them," Cullen said, frowning now. "Mia will kill me. Gah," he put his hands on his head. "I'm an awful brother."

"You're off saving the world. Worlds," she amended.

"Yes, but I've got time to write." He swallowed audibly. "Maybe… maybe you could meet them, someday."

"Go to Thedas?"

"Maybe," he said again, softening the suggestion.

The second half of the implication then struck Eleanor. "You… want me to meet your family?"

Cullen took a defensive step back and bumped into the piano bench. "I just meant…" but what had he meant? Maybe he had said exactly that. Maybe it wasn't such a terrifying idea.

"I think," said Eleanor slowly, "I might like that."

"You would?" Cullen perked up.

She smiled, appealing to him. "I might."

He nodded as if filing the information away for future reference. "Alright," was all he said, but inside he was overcome.

Eleanor stashed the thought in her ever-growing collection of someday maybe.


	37. All That's Left Now

The rain had begun to fall as Eleanor dressed again in her robes, kitted out with all kinds of supplies she hadn't known remained at the barn after the soldiers' had left: poultices and small daggers and stamina draughts for Cullen and Varric, which seemed to be some sort of primitive energy drink, insofar as she could tell, and small things like sewing kits and numbing herbs and whetstones, and they took them and divided them up amongst themselves. Eleanor found another small sash equipped with many more pouches than her own, and she wore it from shoulder to hip, to avoid getting in the way of the other. Dorian and Varric seemed to have innumerable hidden pockets and pouches, and Cullen's belt had many bags to festoon himself with.

It was too, too odd to see him once more in the armour he had arrived in, all reds and blacks, and he looked older, somehow, more burdened, not by the weight of the metal and cloth, but by purpose. He had shaved his stubble and Eleanor had trimmed his hair, and he looked like a person she barely knew; he almost looked like a threat. She was glad he was on her side.

But Eleanor now felt so small. Even next to Varric, who stood just about four feet high, for the dwarf was broad-shouldered and strong. Dorian was tall and sinewy and glittering in his own robes, and Cullen was absolutely imposing, a wall of a man. And she was small and clad in cloth but for a few metal buckles here and there with her staff on her back and her gun on her hip. and she was both afraid and hoped that she blended into the background, became a non-entity, hoping that the darkspawn would just ignore her for these obviously more threatening targets. But only if it meant no harm would come to them as well.

She had the distinct feeling that that was absolutely not about to happen.

Cullen was carrying rations in from the kitchen; they would divvy them up on the way. He did pause to hand her a full thermos of hot coffee; how long it would stay hot, she couldn't say. Not nearly long enough. None of them knew how long they expected to be down there, but Varric said it could be hours, or days, or more.

They brought enough supplies for a week, bedrolls and water bottles, and Eleanor had no idea how they were going to carry it all, but it was better to have it than not.

"Alright," Cullen said, the sound of his voice alone putting him in charge, more so than his title, "Eleanor will drive us to within a mile of the ravine. Closer if all goes well. If not, if we encounter any darkspawn on the way, we ditch the truck and eliminate them, and continue on foot."

Eleanor didn't want to continue on foot, exactly, but she didn't want darkspawn wandering through the Indiana countryside either. Though they may already be, she realized, and she silently cursed the Inquisition for taking away Cullen's patrols. Who knows what damage they could already be causing? And then Eleanor cursed herself for not having a TV or radio anymore, and for neglecting the internet inasmuch as one could neglect the internet. Just how far had the Blight spread? She felt foolish now for not knowing.

Cullen hoisted a large sack of supplies over his shoulder. "All that's left now is…" his voice trailed off and Dorian and Varric nodded. Eleanor cracked her knuckles inside her gloves. "Okay, Eleanor. Bring the truck around."

* * *

They rode to the ravine in silence. Eleanor could not remember a time when she felt more strange than now, driving this old Chevy pickup truck while wearing elaborate garments quite literally not of this world. Her staff was in the back under a tarp. Cullen was next to her. Varric and Dorian rode in the back with all of their things, look as entirely out of place as she felt. But Cullen reached over and placed a heavily armoured hand on her knee, and she gave it a squeeze, an action that assured her all of this was real, while at the same time, pulling her further and further away from the reality she had once inhabited. This was an entirely different sort of reality, she couldn't help but feel, a much more dire, painful reality. The blood on Cullen's back had said so. The power in her veins said so, as had the ever more constant threat of death.

Eleanor took a deep breath and shifted down a gear, slowing the truck as they approached the gash in the Indiana soil.

* * *

Dorian and Varric leapt out of the back, less wet than Eleanor had expected they might be, probably thanks to some magic of Dorian's. But it had not been foolproof, and the flatness of Dorian's coif made him look a bit less noble than he typically did. He took it in stride now, the nearness of the situation silencing them all. They split up the food, as much as they could carry, and left anything that ended up being extraneous in the truck. It wasn't much, and it wasn't a long drive home, but if they exhausted their supplies while in the ravine, having a few bottles of water and some nutrition bars in the truck might just be the thing that got them back to the farm.

If they made it that far.

Eleanor adjusted her pack, her many pouches, and suddenly the elegant configuration of the staff on her back and gun at her side felt awkward and cumbersome. Everything felt awkward and cumbersome. She almost found herself wishing she were already at the point where supplies were running low just so she wouldn't have so much weight on her shoulders. Or that they would go in, find a dead end, throw their hands up in the air and give the Inquisition a big, "Aw, shucks, Inquisitor, we did our best," and call it a day, never worry about this again.

She pushed that last wish into the same place she had pushed the "boy I sure hope no one gets hurt" drawer in her mind, the one full of bullshit she kept telling herself to find the strength to keep going, despite that drawer being clearly and accurately labeled.

Pulling her hood over her head to shield her face from the rain, she followed Cullen as he began to trudge grudgingly toward the ravine.


	38. I Think I Speak for Everyone

The descent was less steep than she had thought it would be.

They approached from the north, the edge where the darkspawn seem to be using as an entrance - an exit - the place where the river that once ran here would have been more shallow. It took them down a zig-zagging slope, the back and forth nature of the rocks that collected there creating a ramp-like effect, almost like a very obtuse staircase. Eleanor wondered if the formation were natural or if the darkspawn had the forethought to create this structure, this pattern in the earth. As she took each step, she grew no wiser, though she noticed her beautiful white boots getting more and more orangy-brown, the color of the clay that lay a few inches below the rich, black topsoil.

Of yet, they had seen no darkspawn. Eleanor didn't know whether to feel comforted or nervous, though the animal part of her brain was slowly swinging toward the latter. Only the rain that fell offered them noise cover on their approach in the truck. They had been quiet on foot for the last mile or so, a walk that took them less than a half an hour, even in the rain, even with their heavy packs, and Eleanor suspected that if any kind of tunnel network lay beneath their feet, the vibrations from the truck overhead would have alerted the darkspawn, and probably not in the way that would scare them off.

There was still dim sunlight overhead; it tried its mightiest to fight through the rain clouds, but the further they walked down into the massive ditch, even though there was still nothing above them but sky, it felt more and more like night. Darker. Quieter. More still. Eleanor found herself biting her tongue, her eyes sweeping in front of her anxiously. She told herself to stay calm; she was third from the front, Cullen leading, then Dorian, then her, and last, Varric, his crossbow already out and pointing left and right in careful arcs. Nothing could get at her from in front or behind; nothing could get her from the sides, the clay walls rising up just feet away on either side, unbreached by caverns or tunnels - so far; and if anything tried to ambush them from above, it would have to drop twenty, now twenty-five, now thirty feet or more as they worked deeper and deeper into the canyon. The rain dampened them still, and Eleanor reached back to touch her staff, just to find in it its warmth, its safety.

The ravine grew dimmer and dimmer by degrees, and after they had been walking for what felt like hours but may only have been fifteen minutes - Eleanor hoped it wasn't only fifteen minutes; her back already ached, unused to the awkward weight - Dorian grasped his staff and held it at arm's length in front of him, causing it to emit only the faintest glow. The shadows lengthened and darkened, and made everything seem weird, haunted.

"Sparkler, I think I speak for everyone when I say that we appreciate the effort, but that really isn't helping," Varric's voice was careful and soft, as though he was afraid of disturbing anything in the darkness, or even the darkness itself.

"I second that notion," Eleanor whispered, whipping her head from side to side, almost knocking her hood from her head.

"It might be better just to let our eyes adjust," offered Cullen. "It's going to be night soon."

"Is it?" Eleanor asked.

She watched as Cullen tipped his head skyward in the dim light. "I… think so."

Eleanor hadn't brought her cell phone because of the rain, because it would be dead in hours, because she wasn't sure she would get reception in a darkspawn-infested ravine thirty, forty, who knew how many more feet underground anyway.

But she could have brought a god damned watch.

She cursed herself even as she asked why it mattered, and Dorian extinguished his light. Though it had been dim, only the faintest glow, the darkness now seemed to close in around them, to swallow them up.

* * *

Eleanor had begun to count her steps, to try to keep some measure of the distance they traveled. In front of her, Cullen and Dorian were walking fast, but not so fast that the smaller Eleanor and Varric couldn't keep up. She figured her strides were maybe two and a half, three feet long at best, but she rounded down to two to compensate for the times when the group rounded a sharp corner, slowed, took smaller steps for sometimes twenty or thirty paces at a time. She counted her steps a hundred at a time, starting over at one each time she met the mark. Ninety-eight, ninety-nine, one hundred… Ninety-eight, ninety-nine, two hundred. She tried to keep track of her surroundings as the numbers tallied up; she saw grooves in the wall, grooves that could have been narrow passageways into a vast tunnel system, but were too dark and too small to bear immediate investigation. Instead, they continued along the main channel of the ravine, the obvious main artery; if nothing came to fruition, they would turn back and check the smaller cavities. She counted and walked, walked and counted, traveled along the center ravine. But when she got to five thousand steps, ten thousand feet, almost two miles - more than two miles, because she hadn't begun counting until they were already some distance down, some distance in - Eleanor gave up. Who knew how long this went on? She strained her eyes to see above her but the walls of the ravine were now easily more than fifty feet high and closing up around them. There was no way for her to suss out a landmark that might tell her where on the Indiana landscape she now stood, where in relation to the truck or to home she might be; her sense of direction was entirely skewed, thrown off-kilter every time they took a sharp turn that seemed to double back on itself, then turn around again. So Eleanor stopped counting, stopped measuring, stopped trying. How anyone was going to be able to map this out afterward, she had no idea. She could not pause to write, could not even keep track of distances. But it didn't matter. So far, there was nothing to map. Nothing to note at all. It wasn't so bad, really. Her feet were comfortable if a bit cold in her soft leather boots, and the weight on her shoulders and back became less an ache and more a vague sensation as her muscles compensated for the load. No rain reached them now, if indeed the rain still fell at all, and she occasionally stole sips of water from a plastic bottle, nibbles from a dense-as-dirt nutrition bar, ostensibly chocolate flavored. Eleanor could taste no chocolate but the bar was not unpleasant, and kept her moving, kept her stomach full. Despite the darkness, she was feeling just about in the groove of this whole expedition when Cullen came to an abrupt halt in front of Dorian, who stopped suddenly in front of her. Eleanor, thinking quickly, put her hand out behind her to stop Varric from jabbing her with the point of the arrow that stuck out at the end of his crossbow - a crossbow that Eleanor had thought she had heard Varric mutter sweet nothings to in the darkness, but more likely the dwarf was just muttering to himself to fill the silence. Eleanor was almost surprised she wasn't doing the same.

"What is it?" Eleanor heard Dorian whisper ahead of her in the darkness. Then she heard Cullen draw his sword.

"Cullen?" she murmured, softly pleading for more information. All she got was brief 'shh' from some feet up ahead. So she shhed.

Eleanor strained her ears and for what felt like a long time, she heard nothing. For as long as she could, Eleanor held her breath, and got the impression that the three men around her were all doing the same.

And then she heard it. A quiet sound, far away, a scuttling, a clattering of metal. A strange, inhuman chittering that made the air around her go heavy and cold. Her heart began to race, and she reached for her staff, snapping it quickly off of her back. Dorian did the same. Varric drew back the string on his crossbow.

Ahead of her, Eleanor could just make out the movement of Cullen's left hand, a downward-pushing motion, signalling them all to keep quiet as he began to step cautiously forward, pressing now toward the left-hand wall of the canyon. Keeping his sword exposed but the tip pointing down, blade low to the ground, Cullen gestured again with his empty hand that the darkspawn were on the right, and that the party should list cautiously away from that side of the ravine - was there a fork ahead that Eleanor couldn't see? Did the path widen? She didn't know, couldn't tell, but she followed Dorian who followed Cullen, keeping back, keeping anxiously away from the soft echoes of the clucking, the shuffling. Anytime a rock slipped under her foot, she winced as though she were dropping a tray full of glass, but when she looked up, no one's heads were ever even turned in her direction, everyone focusing on their own small noises, heartbeats, breaths.

For a brief moment, Eleanor thought that the sounds, and by extension, the darkspawn, were right beside her, at an arm's reach, but she knew they couldn't be, knew they must be well in the distance in some dark crevasse she could not reach, could not see, and she forced herself to keep moving until the sounds just as suddenly were behind her, behind Varric, and though his footfalls remained soft, Cullen began to pick up his pace once more, nothing like as fast as before but but faster than his creeping steps at let him. Within moments, the sounds were fading. With a quarter of an hour, all was silent again, black, still.

A wave of exhaustion brought on by the ebb and flow of terror struck Eleanor hard and she notched her staff back into place, having to realize first that she was even still holding it. It had become an extension of her arm through familiarity and fear and her fingers stayed clenched in the shape of the slim cylinder even after she let it go. She flexed her hand, flexed her shoulders, the weight upon them straining her anew. Remembering the coffee that Cullen had made for her, she reached for it in the darkness, sliding it out of the strap from where it hung, and carefully unscrewed the cap, bringing the thermos to her lips and drinking greedily. It was not ice cold yet, still tepid, and she was thankful even for this dim warmth, this mildly bitter flavor. When the coffee was half-gone, she breathed into the darkness, "I don't want to be the first person to bring this up, but… when do we stop?"

A tentative silence answered her, as though everyone had wondered the same thing.

"I suppose," Cullen began to answer, just above a whisper, "we should find some kind of enclosure…" he paused, and by virtue of his blond hair alone, Eleanor saw him turn his head to look around. "Anywhere we can have as few sides as possible exposed. A cave of some kind," he speculated, "as small as possible."

"And quiet," Varric added from the back of the line.

"This is starting to sound dangerously specific."

"I know," commiserated Cullen. "We'll do as best as we can."

"Alright," answered Eleanor.

"Let's keep moving," was the next command, and they all obeyed.


	39. No Fireballs, No Exploding Corpses

Eleanor estimated it was approaching midnight - give or take three or four hours in either direction - when they stumbled across a hole in the wall of the ravine. It was maybe twenty feet deep and as many wide, just big enough for them all to spread out with their bedrolls and stretch their legs. They'd neither seen nor heard any further darkspawn activity, come across no threats, nothing to indicate that darkspawn had ever been in this part of the ravine except for a few bones, picked clean, a pile of discarded armor and spears, and the foreknowledge that, of course, they had. There was no other way for the darkspawn to get out of the earth and into the Indiana landscape. And even if there were, all of them, barring Varric - who didn't need to see it to believe it - had seen with their own eyes darkspawn wandering up the very same incline they had wandered down some hours before. And while their brief almost-encounter with the darkspawn was frightening, the absolutely lack of activity that had absolutely promised to be crawling with the buggers - especially given Cullen's encounter with them only a few days before - was unsettling in a completely different way, a deeper way that said that something else had to be wrong. More wrong than a Blight in a realm that didn't even have Old Gods.

"You know, I didn't like this before and now I like it even less," Varric grumbled as he pulled off his boots and stretched out his toes. Ever since the ravine had stopped being a ravine and had become a tunnel, ever since the ceiling had closed above them, Varric had been antsier, twitching at every small sound, even when they came from the dwarf himself. But no one in the party would disagree with his statement, not for a single second.

"Where even are we?" Eleanor asked, even though she would be the only one remotely capable of answering that question, and at the moment, she was not even so much as that.

"The less and less action we see, the more and more this feels like a suicide mission," Dorian grumbled.

"Maker's breath," Cullen groaned. "It doesn't feel right, but I for one am glad no one has had to take a single swing at a darkspawn," he declared, leaning back against the wall of the cave and unfastening the buckles on the platemail covering his gloves, letting them drop to the solid earth with a heavy thunk.

And in the distance, something grumbled.

It was more like a vibration that came from deep within their bodies than a sound, but all of them heard it, or felt it, and they looked from each to the other and then all to Cullen.

"Maybe don't do that again," Eleanor suggested, the volume of her voice exceedingly low now.

"Indeed," Dorian said, and gingerly set his staff down beside himself.

Eleanor scootched carefully to Cullen's side, resting her head on his shoulder.

"Tired?" he asked her.

She nodded, and covered her mouth to stifle a yawn.

Varric stretched, reaching once more for his boots, and pulled them back on. "You lovebirds get some rest. Dorian and I will take first watch."

"We will?" groaned Pavus.

"Yes, Sparkler. We will."

Eleanor thanked Varric for his offer, but didn't think she would be able to get any rest in this awful place either way. That was, of course, until she laid her head down on Cullen's chest, pulled her velvety-soft cloak around her like a blanket, and almost instantly fell asleep.

* * *

"El, let's move," she heard Cullen's voice beckoning to her. It was soft, gentle, but urgent. Around her she heard the sounds of things being picked up, put away. Quickly.

"Is it our turn for watch?" she said blearily.

"No, El," Cullen whispered.

She realized now that she was no longer laying on his shoulder, his chest, but that he had let her head rest on top of his wound-up bedroll. She gave it a squeeze as she as she sat up. Her eyes had adjusted more now from the perpetual darkness, from sleep, and she saw Varric and Dorian hastily collecting their things, tying them back onto their bodies.

Eleanor caught on quickly, and began to gather her own things, which Cullen had placed in a small pile for her, but she lacked specifics, so she jumped to the most obvious conclusion, "Darkspawn?"

"I… don't think so," answered Varric, lifting his crossbow and giving it a little pat on the side. "Bianca doesn't either."

"Bianca?"

"I'll explain later," Cullen said, lifting the bedroll Eleanor had been using as a pillow and hoisting it back up to the straps that would secure it.

"Will you? Because I still don't understand," Dorian jabbed.

"You're just jealous, Sparkler."

"Is it that obvious?"

"Shut up, the both of you," Cullen freed his sword from its scabbard with sound that was like music, and he pointed it at them, then gestured with it toward the ravine which was no longer a ravine. "Let's move."

They were back to their cautious, crawling pace, and that combined with inadequate rest and the damp chill of the tunnel made Eleanor feel ruinous, much worse than she had when she'd laid down to rest. But fear motivated her to keep moving. Somewhere - behind? In front? - she could hear a small sound that was not the sound of darkspawn, not the way she'd known it before. It was a little scrabbling noise that a moment later was punctuated by a strange mewl that was not entirely unlike that of a kitten.

"Aw," she said with an almost motherly tone, "what is that?"

"Nothing good, believe me, Farm Girl," cautioned Varric.

"But how could -"

"It's a deepstalker," said Cullen in a hushed tone. "They're almost harmless by themselves, but they travel in packs."

In her mind, Eleanor was still picturing something soft and furry, cat-like, ganging up on her and mauling her. Still, the thought of a small band of kittens chewing on her face wasn't the most horrifying thing she'd ever imagined. The longer she pictured it, the more funny it became, especially as the other three sneaked so seriously about in the dark to avoid these deepstalkers, whatever they were. Finally, the image of the wrath of a thousand furry kittens became too much and Eleanor had to stifle a laugh with her hand, choking it back and releasing the air instead in a loud sound not unlike a hiccup.

"Eleanor," Cullen warned harshly.

"I'm sorry, I just -"

She stopped. Something ahead of her moved, a lighter patch in the prevalent darkness.

"Shit," Varric murmured.

"I only see the one," Dorian said, trying to strain hope into his voice.

"There's never just the one," Cullen assured him, and with his left hand, he reached for the shield on his back.

"Oh good god," said Eleanor, and she backed up as far as she could until her pack touched the wall. She went for her staff, almost instinctually now.

"Not a bad place for you, Farm Girl," Varric assured her. It didn't make her feel much better.

"Let's keep this as quiet as we can," Cullen said.

"Do let's," agreed Dorian.

"Bianca's got this."

With that, Cullen pushed off on one foot, slashing out at the thing in the darkness. Dorian cast a spell that seemed to cover her, cover every around her, and she suddenly felt overwhelmingly secure, as though nothing could touch her. From beside her, Varric was already firing off round after round into the writhing mass, which, as Eleanor watched, went from one object to two to three to more. Under Cullen's blade, the first one dropped, the second one too. The third one Dorian hit with a blast from his staff but it wasn't enough to drop the creature, and it lunged up, gnashing its teeth at Cullen. He smashed it with his shield but had to back away.

Eleanor could now see it was nothing like a kitten. What it was, in fact, was a very small dinosaur. A wee thing, not quite as cute as a kitten, but it was hardly threatening, until Eleanor realized there were at least five more left standing.

"Mother of god," she breathed, and she heard Cullen give a pained shout. One of the things had whipped its claws out and slashed into Cullen's arm. Eleanor reacted, taking one small step forward and pressing her staff, her hands against her chest before she pushed them out, as though sending good vibes toward the injured man, and though the wounds of his she had healed before were undoubtedly much more severe, Eleanor was still surprised when it seemed to work.

But now the other deepstalkers had taken notice of Varric, of Dorian, and of her.

"Uh-oh," she mumbled. She took a step back, but she had only ever taken one step forward, and so her pack smacked hard into the wall of the tunnel, soft clay though it was.

The little beasts chittered and cackled as they lurched forward on awkward legs. Varric put an arrow through the skull of one, Dorian burnt one quickly with his staff, but it kept approaching.

"Cullen!" Pavus hissed, as the commander thwacked one of the reptiles with the pommel of his sword. "Being quiet is going to get us all killed!"

"We can't afford to attract any others!" Cullen insisted.

If this was quiet, Eleanor thought in a panic, the thrum of Cullen's sword, the twang-thuck as Varric's arrows left their crossbow and impacted into the deepstalkers, the electric blast of Dorian's staff, what was loud?

"Cullen -"

"Dorian, no! No fireballs, no exploding corpses!"

Eleanor realized that she could hear clearly the sound of the two men bickering despite their hushed tones and that everything must seem so loud because of the relative silence that had been broken by the fight. But if she noticed it, wouldn't everyone else? Everything?

In her hesitation, Eleanor failed to see the ancillary groups of deepstalkers sneaking up on the party from the edges, some further down the tunnel, some further up. How could Cullen still be urging them to be quiet? She understood Dorian's concern, was afraid that their caution would backfire. But she forced the thought into her mind. Quiet, quiet, quiet. She closed her eyes and repeated it like a chant. Quiet. Quiet. Soft. Soft like falling snow. Cold.

Eleanor took a step forward, and then another, toward the creatures and away from the protective safety of Dorian and Varric, who had effectively penned her in.

"Ellie!" Dorian spat, reaching for her, but she ignored him, staying just far enough behind Cullen to swing her staff out in a wide arc.

Ice erupted from it, from the ground, from her, and froze all but two of the furthest away stalkers.

Fire was loud, but winter was silent.

"Yes! Good one, Farm Girl," Varric cheered, picking off the unfrozen dinosaur closest to him with an arrow, and the cascading a rain of bolts down on the frozen ones, causing them to shatter. Cullen rammed his sword through the last living reptile and it went down with a pathetic squeak.

All four paused, listened hard in the darkness. There were noises, scuffles in the distance, but the immediate threat had been neutralized.

Softly, Eleanor asked, "Is anyone hurt?"

Under his breath, Dorian laughed.


	40. Extremely Talented Craftspeople

Eleanor tried to work out how long they had been walking. Maybe they walked until midnight - she'd call it a day. She hadn't slept more than a few hours, so maybe they'd gotten up, fought the deepstalkers, at four in the morning? It seemed as reasonable an estimate as any. She was tired, but she thought maybe it was noon - it was dark so she had no way of knowing, and again, she cursed herself for not wearing a watch. She had no idea what time it was. Where she was. What she was doing. They'd heard more sounds here and there but they had yet to actually encounter a darkspawn, and Eleanor was starting to get the feeling that after a day and a half of walking, this main artery wasn't taking them where they needed to be going. The dim shapes she saw in the cavern walls were so nebulous they could have been walking in circles for all the identifying she was capable of doing. Maybe they were. She'd seen some strange things in the past few months but certainly there could not be a tunnel network of this scope under the plains of Indiana. Or Illinois. Or Kentucky. Or wherever the hell they were for however far they had walked. The thought ate at her and ate at her. She was just on the verge of suggesting they turn around, begin to walk back so that they could literally come at this from a different angle, or at least see if they could find the entrance again - god, would they be trapped down here? - when there began to be light from some as-yet unknowable source. At first, Eleanor thought she was imagining things, that she'd been down in the dark so long she was either becoming numb to it, or that the walls were a lighter shade of clay now and her long-term exposure to so much neutrality clued her into it more than it might otherwise have done.

But no. From somewhere, there was light.

"Do you…" she said slowly, voice even quieter now.

She watched Dorian's head bob up and down: yes.

"What could that be?"

"I've got one idea," suggested Varric, "but you're not gonna like it. I don't like it."

"Wanna share with the class?" Eleanor whispered, turning her head to get a peek of the dwarf.

"Might be lava," he suggested entirely in earnest. "In Orzammar, the dwarves use lava as a natural source of heat and light."

"That's ridiculous," Eleanor said immediately. "We'd have to be going straight down for as far as we've walked this entire time to hit lava. Magma. Whatever. And there are no dwarves here, so how -"

"Hey, you asked."

Eleanor pursed her lips thin, not because she didn't trust Varric, but because she had no better answers. Maybe some bioluminescent cave-dwelling organisms, but the light was so warm, so even, and it was growing brighter.

Was it glimmering?

Looking around, Eleanor felt suddenly like she had plunged through the surface of a pool of water without getting wet, and come out on the other side.

"What was that?" she heard Cullen ask.

"Search me," offered Dorian.

"But you all saw that?"

They didn't have to answer to let her know that they did, and that they didn't have any more information than she did.

There were a few minutes of silence and the light grew brighter the further they went, until Varric spoke up.

"Farm Girl?"

"Hm?"

"Are you sure you don't have any dwarves?"

"I mean, we have little people, sure. But do we have a subterranean culture of extremely talented craftspeople? I'm pretty sure someone would have mentioned that."

"I wouldn't bet on it," Varric objected, and he stopped, pointed toward something in the distance. "Look."

The whole party paused and squinted into the distance, the light casting shadows off of a large object - the first real object they'd seen down here - a few dozen feet away.

"Is that… a statue?" Cullen asked hesitantly.

"Looks like," said Varric, and he pushed past the rest of the party either through fearlessness or sheer curiosity to inspect the object. "Hate to break it to you, Farm Girl. But this here?" he thumbed at the statue, which stood several feet higher than Varric himself, "is Astyth the Grey."

* * *

Eleanor had sat down defiantly in front of the statue, remaining there for sometime. Dorian had taken off his heavy gear to rest, and Cullen still stood, one hand on his chin, contemplating the structure as though if he stared at it long enough, it would give him some answers. Varric was taking everything in stride, as much as he could.

Which was to say, not at all.

"How can this be the Deep Roads?" he quietly, studying the stone figure from every possible angle as though trying to discern whether or not it were actually standing before him, looking ancient, looking prehistoric, looking all too real.

"I think we'd all like to know the answer to that," Dorian agreed, stretching out his aching limbs.

"This can't be," Eleanor objected. "Even if the darkspawn were here for fully seven years, making these tunnels, why would there be this… this thing here? Would they bring it? Does it mean something."

Cullen shook his head. "As much as I would like a simple explanation, I can't help but think we're missing something. Look around. This isn't a cavern anymore, or just a tunnel, or even something artificial carved by the haphazard handiwork of the darkspawn. This is… a place. Or the beginning of one. Just look," he implored, and sent his eyes toward the ceiling.

At no point had the ceiling seemed low. It had been cavernous, canyon-like the whole time, barring their brief respite in the narrow nook in the wall, and even that had been tall enough for Dorian and Cullen to stand, if just barely. The roof still seemed miles above them - was at least thirty feet - but now it was even. Flat. It met the walls at something like right angles.

"Someone… made this?" she asked.

"Bingo," Varric said, sounding less delighted than his word choice implied. "Somehow - I dunno how - at some point, we entered the Deep Roads." The frown on his face was impressive, and he put a hand palm down on the top of his head, as he looked around again.

"This is… not good," muttered Dorian.

"This is impossible," answered Eleanor.

A low rumble reverberated from somewhere. It was the same noise, the same feeling, that had answered the heavy drop of Cullen's gloves.

"That… is worse," the commander said. "I think we should keep moving."

"Cullen, I haven't slept in…" Dorian's complaint died off as he realized he had no idea how long it had been since he'd slept.

"We keep moving," Cullen insisted. "If we find another safe place, we rest."

"An excellent idea, Curly," said Varric, "I want to be out of here as quickly as possible. If that means going in first, so be it."


	41. I Think We've Found Them

The rumble shook beneath them in closing intervals. At first, it startled them out of their ambulatory reverie once every hour or so, just a long enough pause in between for them to think it might not happen again, that they were past the threat, whatever it might be. But then the grumbles came quicker, more intense. Once every few thousand steps. Few hundred. Then after just a few dozen.

"Why do I get the awful feeling that we're going the wrong way?"

"This is the only way to go," insisted Cullen, though that wasn't entirely true. Now that they could see clearly, thanks to some glow from the depth, a glow that poured up from a mote that had begun to run along the edges of the path, they could see into the offshoots of the tunnel, narrow paths, not at all carved, finished like the artery down which they traveled. But none of these seemed like paths to anywhere, none of them seemed special enough to take them somewhere they needed to go. This main road was clearly going somewhere - or coming from somewhere - though where it had begun, where the natural hollowing of the tunnel, the ravine, became this, no one could remember.

But Cullen had made his point.

"So then what do we do if we discover whatever is making that sound?"

"Dorian," Cullen chastised. "That's the whole point. We need to find out what's down here."

"What's down here? One handful of darkspawn and some pissed off lizards, that's what's down here!" Dorian threw up his hands and turned in a circle. "We should go back," he insisted. "We can tell the Wardens that there's nothing to fear. They should be able to find the darkspawn and poke it with a stick without concern. For Andraste's sake, they can leave their fancy armor at home!" he shouted.

"Dorian -" Eleanor said softly, to try to shush the mage, to try to listen, but Cullen was shouting back.

"You very well knew we might be down here for days. We've got plenty of supplies. I promise you we'll find some place to rest, and soon," the commander placated. "But we are not turning around until we have a clear picture of what's going on here."

"Cullen…" Eleanor tried now to quiet him down, reaching out for his hand, but he had already turned away.

"A clear picture! Hah! We don't know where we are, we don't know how we got here, we don't even know how this - all this! - is possible! What exactly are we going to get a clear picture of, Commander?"

Varric had rolled his eyes, turned away, as though he had watched this scene play out a thousand times before. Maybe he had.

"Please, guys, I think I hear -"

But she didn't have to tell them what she heard. They all heard it.

It was a scream. A shriek. Right below their feet, or above their heads, or all around them. It permeated the air like a physical thing, enveloping them in thick, grasping fear.

The Archdemon.

None of them moved.

And then all of them ran.

* * *

They ran in the direction they had already been heading, because they knew there was nothing behind them but a long, dark tunnel. They ran because the lurching fear that overtook them told them there was nothing else they could do but run. They ran until their legs and chests burnt, and kept running until the ground beneath them began to shake, began to tremble. The Archdemon was coming, but from where? Ahead of them? Under them? It didn't matter. They had to hide.

Cullen looked quickly from side to side, saw an opening that look more like a door than most of the others had.

"In here!" he turned his head and called back, and then darted into the side passage, almost tripping over a small rise that he hadn't seen. He stumbled down the path a few feet, deep enough to allow his three companions to quickly follow suit, and they crouched down, wanting to look out onto the road from whence they had just come and yet not wanting to see. Cullen reached out and pulled Eleanor to his chest, and she pressed her face against his armor until the whole cavern shook in such a way that it threatened to fall in around them. She had to look.

Eleanor turned her face and looked back the way they came, just in time to see the Archdemon scream past. If she hadn't seen it herself, she never would have believed it, never even would have thought that the Archdemon could fit in such a place, but its wings were drawn back against its body and it shot forward like a missile, and Eleanor realized that it might not even be using its wings to fly, perforated with holes as they were. It might simply use some sort of wicked magic to propel itself forward until it found a hole in the ceiling that would allow it to rise up and into the sky.

The Archdemon passed, and an even more horrible noise filled Eleanor's ears: the sound of darkspawn, of dozens of them. Hundreds. More. They ran behind the Archdemon as though it was their king leading them into battle, and they were its army. Perhaps, she thought, that was exactly what was happening.

And then she thought, oh my god. They're going to see us.

If they were spotted, they were dead. They could take down ten, maybe fifteen darkspawn. Twenty if luck was on their side and only if. They could not take down this massive swarm, and the Archdemon would just as soon eat them for lunch. They had to move, or they were done for.

"Cullen," it was just a breath, just the merest idea of his name, "we have to get away from here."

He nodded; he already knew - they all already knew - but maybe didn't want to let her go just yet, not with the threat only so many feet away. Maybe he didn't want to move, some sick impulse compelling him to watch as the horde of darkspawn spilled past like a flood. But he began to move his feet, began to slowly inch deeper into the passage, carefully, quietly, his arms still loosely around Eleanor, just enough to allow her freedom to move, but tight enough to feel as though he were somehow protecting her more this way than if he let her go.

When they rounded a sharp corner, now decidedly out of sight of the army, the collapsed. Even Cullen trembled.

"Well," said Dorian, his usually strong, smooth voice quaking and shallow, "I think we've found them."

* * *

 _Author's note:_ A belated apology for not having a new chapter up on Monday which sort of wonked out the schedule for this week. There will not be an update tomorrow (Friday), but there will be one on Sunday and next week the regular Mon/Wed/Fri/Sun schedule will (hopefully) resume, if I can get laptop access at work earlier in the day. Otherwise, I'll be switching to Tues/Thurs/Sun. We'll see.

And once again, I would like to thank **starryskyondragon'sback** for leaving the kindest and most thoughtful reviews. When I need to know what I'm doing right or what's sticking in people's head's, I can always look to their reviews. So thank you. That will be very helpful for the sequel!

WHICH.

I plan to start writing soon. I'm working on what started as a small piece of fluff-fic for a friend over on AO3, and I really want to finish it. But after that, I think I actually have a good few ideas for a follow up to InkyIndy. I will, of course, be posting the edited version of this here fic first, but the sequel has been kicking around in my cobweb-filled brain since about two days after I finished this.


	42. Or Drive You Mad and Then Kill You

After a few moments' rest, with a burst of warming help from Eleanor, they picked themselves up. They way they had come was no longer an option, not for several hours at least, maybe days, maybe ever, depending on what this sudden movement of such a large group of darkspawn headed by the Archdemon could mean. If they were all headed for the surface…

Eleanor's heart was in her throat. If they were all headed for the surface, then that was pretty much game over, wasn't it? With those numbers, they could spread out and absolutely destroy the landscape in a matter of hours. Divide and conquer. She thought of Swiffer alone in the house; Eleanor had set out enough wet food for a day or so, and the cat would have plenty of dry food and water thanks to the auto-feeders Eleanor had dug out of the attic, for all of the non-existent times she might have left to go on a trip. But those would mean nothing if the darkspawn burned the farm to the ground. Burned her house down. Suddenly the fact that it was only half-painted seemed unimportant. Seemed charming. Seemed like something she would miss terribly.

She didn't even want to think about the people.

But she couldn't dwell on that right now. They were fifty yards into a passage that they couldn't get out of, so their only option was to continue along this path, hope it didn't meet back up with the main road, at least not with any proximity to the entrance they had used, and hope even harder that it wasn't a dead end. It didn't feel like a dead end; it was a much rawer construction than the well-made road from whence they'd come, but it looked maintained. Operational. Which was good, Eleanor thought, and also was bad; what if other darkspawn seeking the main group used this passageway? The opening through which they'd come wasn't exactly decorated, but it had been shaped, squared-off, made more door-like. Whether the dwarves had done it or the darkspawn, they couldn't say, but it seemed like a tunnel that would lead at least somewhere.

The glow here was not the orange light from the lava flows that ran along the path, but a dim blue that seemed to come from the very walls itself. Something about the blue was comforting despite its mysteriousness. Eleanor found her heart rate slowing as curiosity took over her mind and pushed out the fear, and she ran her gloved fingers along the surface of the wall. It wasn't the soft clay from before, nor the sandstone that seemed to make up the road they had just left and the statue of the Paragon. No, this was something different. It was cool through the leather. It was welcoming.

"I wouldn't do that for too long, Farm Girl," Varric cautioned. "I think this was a lyrium mine."

"That's bad?"

Dorian cast a glance at her. "The lyrium we use is refined. Heavily refined."

Cullen cleared his throat a bit but said nothing.

"The raw stuff will kill you. Or drive you mad. Or drive you mad and then kill you," offered Varric in a helpful tone.

"Especially mages," Dorian amended. Eleanor quickly drew her arms up to her sides, even as he said, "But I don't see any lyrium veins here. This place might have been mined mostly bare, turned into a pathway after it was all used up. Could be just enough lyrium dust on the walls to help light our way."

And indeed, the tunnel was dark, but the dim blue glow was just enough to see by.

The path twisted and turned, turned and twisted, and for the first time, Eleanor felt like she was actually descending, instead of just feeling like the earth was closing up overhead. The tunnel dipped here and there, levelled out, dipped again.

"This has to be taking us somewhere," Cullen said.

"I sure hope so, Curly," said Varric, still mumbling every now and again about how he became a surfacer for a reason.

And then the path seemed to widen, gently at first, and then all at once there was a room ahead of them - no, not a room, a hall, a cavern. The ceilings must have been hundreds of feet high, the walls seemed to be miles away. It was a huge dome of a thing, not squared off like the main road they'd walked down, but round like a bubble, though just as artificially crafted. As soon as they stepped out of the mouth of the tunnel and into the chamber, they seemed tiny. Miniature toy people in a real room.

"Maker's breath," murmured Cullen.

"What is this place?" Eleanor asked, turning toward Varric as though he might be able to offer some insight that no one else in the party could.

"That I cannot tell you," he said. He'd been in the Deep Roads before, more times than he'd liked - and no good had ever come of it. This sudden empty space, and it was entirely empty, seemed like nothing he'd come across before. There had been things in every available cavern, he seemed to remember. Not always good things, but things, never the less. Ruined cities. Tombs. Traps. Something. This room seemed naked, seemed intentionally cleared of anything that might have been in it previously, as though it were being prepared for something. Waiting for something.

"Maybe this is the Archdemon's lair?" offered Cullen.

"I don't think so, Curly," said the dwarf. "I don't see a tunnel big enough for that thing to get in or out."

There were more tunnels along the walls, reaching at irregular intervals all the way around the circumference of the room. But they were tunnels like the one from which they had just exited. Small. Person-sized. Maybe even darkspawn-sized. But not big enough to allow passage for a dragon.

No one had taken another step forward; they all stood in a line in front of the tunnel they'd used to get here.

"We should maybe… investigate?" asked Dorian, though he seemed the most reticent to do so.

"Not much else to do, Sparkler."

"Wait," Cullen halted them. "Mark this tunnel. With a stone, anything. If we have go back the way we came," his eyes scanned the enormous space, with its all too similar passageways pocking the walls, "we should at least know which way that was."

Varric looked down at his feet, saw small stones scattered about. He picked up three in his palm, and then placed them in a triangular shape, pointing back the way they'd come.

"Alright," said Eleanor. "I guess we move out?"

"I don't think we can do this systematically," said Dorian. "If every one of these tunnels leads to another chamber, and if every one of those chambers has equally as many tunnels…" his voice drifted off.

"I hate the Deep Roads," grumbled Varric.

"Well," Cullen began, taking charge. "What about straight ahead?"

"As good a choice as any," Dorian said with the suggestion in his voice that no choices were all that good, but that he hadn't got anything else to add.

Unused to this new allowance of space, they walked in a line for a few dozen paces, then allowed themselves to spread out, Eleanor finding Cullen's side. Something about the space felt threatening, as though whatever was meant for this space was already inhabiting it somehow, in some metaphysical way, and it knew they were invading it. It was a ridiculous thought - compared to the legion of darkspawn they'd just come from, there should have been nothing less threatening than an empty room, regardless of its size, but there was an unease in her body that Eleanor just couldn't shake.

She brought a hand up to her chest, rubbing the place where her anxiety seemed to be festering, and said quietly, "I don't…"

"I know," said Cullen, and he reached out to put his arm around her, just between her neck and her staff, "me either."

The sound of his voice more than his agreement comforted her and she leaned against his chest as she walked, hating the hard armor between him and her, hating that they were down here in this awful place, hating that she couldn't just close her eyes and click her heels and leave because this terrible dark place made her realize that there was no place like home. And then she remembered that she was from Indiana and not Kansas and there weren't any good witches in sight.

Except maybe her, and she was short on ruby slippers.

But she looked to her left, and to her right, and maybe she did have a Lion, and a Scarecrow, and a Tin Man, sort of. And hey, both her parents were dead.

The metaphor began to break down - it was a game she had been playing in her head, only a game - and she was almost glad it did. Her Lion was no coward, her Tin Man had more heart than he wanted to admit, her Scarecrow had quite the brain. And the mouth. But this was also no movie, this was no book, it was not all just a dream. The danger was real, and anything that happened to her, to them, happened for good. Even if it was out of the realm of anything she'd previously thought possible. And this was sure as hell no yellow brick road.

"Ugh," she said, lifting her head up from Cullen's chest and squinching her face. "What's that smell?"

They had spanned maybe half of the expanse of the room, heading straight across to the tunnel opposite the one they had come from.

"I have a couple of guesses," said Varric, but he wouldn't elaborate.

As they moved toward the passageway, however, the smell grew worse and worse. They couldn't know for sure that the awful odor was coming from the tunnel they'd chosen, but the sheer density of the stench was enough to make Eleanor consider picking a different path, and she said as much.

"I want to agree with you, El," said Cullen, who had put a hand up to his mouth, "but the fact that we're heading towards something different? Might be the only sign we have we're heading out of a maze."

"And into what?" Dorian asked, but he didn't stop moving forward.

"There are stories… from the Fifth Blight," Varric began to say in a slow voice, "of some gory shit in the Deep Roads."

"Maybe this isn't the time to be telling stories, Varric," Cullen muttered.

"What if they're true?" Eleanor asked.

"Oh, they're almost certainly true, Farm Girl."

Cullen shot Varric a look, and the dwarf put up his hands in surrender. "Alright, alright. Some other time."

When they finally approached the mouth of the tunnel that they had chosen, it was more than obvious that the retched smell was coming from somewhere within.

"Last chance to make a choice with fresher air," Dorian suggested, but though none of them liked it, their minds had been made up. They were going in.

This tunnel offered neither the soft blue light of the previous passageway, nor the warm orange of the main hall, the cavern from which they had just come, but a sort of dim brownish grey suffusion, perhaps a corruption of the more pleasant orange from above. It was harder to see by even than the absolute lack of light in the ravine; it flattened everything out, removed textures, removed depth, and Eleanor found herself walking with her hands alternating out to her sides or in front of her, trying not to bump into any of the sharp twists and bends the path was taking, unlike the gentle sloping curves of before. Everything here was angular but not in the crafted way the main road had been, it was angular in a harsh, broken way, like shattered glass.

Before there had been fear, anticipation, terror, but this winding tunnel filled Eleanor with such a heavy sense of unease she became nauseated without even accounting for the rotten smell - for that's what it was, an absolute unforgiving smell of rot.

"Maybe we should have chosen another path," Cullen grudgingly admitted, for though the path was not noticeably declining as the previous one had, there was the overwhelming sensation of going down, down, down…

Though the pathway was wider - not big, but wider - it gave the overall impression of claustrophobia much more than anywhere else they had been. Maybe it was the light, or the mysterious sense of depth, but for the first time, Eleanor felt as though they were trapped. It was no longer the knowledge that they simply might not find away out in spite of their being one, it was the feeling now that there simply was no way out. Her fists clenched, and she never let her eyes, her head remain still. She was always looking, always searching for the inevitable moment when the penny dropped, the trap was set.

Dorian, if only because he had been staring fixedly ahead, his own means of self-preservation, saw it first.

"Merciful…" he breathed, and put a hand out to stop Eleanor from walking any further.

Here now was another enormous cavern, not so big as the first one they'd come across but a dozen yards across at least, and not carved from any stone Eleanor had ever seen; no, even if there was stone beyond this room seemed to be covered entirely in…

Flesh. It was flesh.

Eleanor felt her whole body contract, convulse, and she took a shaking step back, bumping into Varric who put out his hands to stop her slowly, to keep her from turning and running.

In the center of the room was something writhing. It seemed to be attached to the floor, part of the floor, part of the flesh that surrounded them, a maggot-like thing with weird, flailing limbs, squirming and reaching, and then Eleanor saw that it was female, at least insofar that it had pairs of breasts stretching from its chest to the place where its legless body terminated on the ground.

The stench was unbearable. It seemed to permeate Eleanor's very brain as it emanated from every inch of skin that blanketed the room, from every sack of flesh that hung from the maggot-creatures gelatinous body.

"A broodmother," said Varric, turning his face away. "It hasn't seen us."

Across the fleshy room, there were a pair of passageways, one human-sized, like the one from which they had just come, and a huge, huge one, as though to allow for the passage of a large number of creatures at once, or one very large creature.

Cullen pointed with his sword, didn't have to say anything.

"No, god, no," mumbled Eleanor. "We can't… can't possibly…"

Dorian turned to her with a strained but understanding expression on his face. "I don't like this either, but it's this… or turn around."

She thought of the Archdemon screaming down the main hallway, the hundreds, thousands of darkspawn that followed in its wake.

"Another tunnel," Eleanor suggested, turning around.

Varric shook his head. "For an army that big, there must be at least a dozen broodmothers down here," he told her, and in her mind she counted up the tunnels in the cavernous chamber above them. There were fourteen. The possibility that they all lead to - to this was too much.

Eleanor swung around and pressed her hand into the tunnel wall - still stone, not flesh - and vomited up the meager contents of her stomach. Brown, sticky chocolate from the nutrition bars. Bits of seeds from packets she had thrown into her bag. Almost no water, her body had needed it all.

Beside her, Dorian looked just about as sick as she did, but Cullen pushed carefully past Pavus to rest a hand on Eleanor's back, alongside her staff, rubbing in small circles until she could stand again.

Her purge finished, stomach empty, her offered her his water bottle, not because she didn't have her own - she still had plenty, should probably have less, should probably have drunk more - but because he needed her to feel some sort of compassion from him before he told her, as she was rinsing out her mouth and spitting the bile that coated her tongue out on the floor, he said, "Stay close to me. No matter what, stay close."

For an instant, all three men eyed up Eleanor, suddenly knowing that if she were taken, not killed but kidnapped, she would face a worse fate than any of them could ever know.

"Slowly," Cullen commanded Dorian and Varric, and her took Eleanor's hand - could barely feel it through his glove and hers, but took it nevertheless - and lead her along the perimeter of the room, trying to stay as far away from the fleshy creatures as possible, trying to stay out of sight. For the first time, the dim, flattening light in the room was giving them an advantage.

Cullen lifted his foot tentatively and set it down. The floor beneath his feet suddenly squished.

The broodmother screamed.

"Son of a bitch," Cullen muttered, and tightened his grip on Eleanor's hand. "Run!" he shouted, and pulled her as hard as he could, feet carrying him as fast as he could, as the mage and dwarf darted along behind.

"Getting awfully tired of running away!" Dorian shouted, sending a blast of flame not at the broodmother, but into the flesh on the opposite side of the room to try and focus her attention away from them.

"Would you rather -" Varric began, but just then, tentacles shot up from the floor and reached out, at first searching the air, but then dropped lower, and one swung just over Cullen's head. He ducked expertly down, dropping Eleanor's hand to roll, gear and all, as another swished above him, and when he exited the somersault he used all the added momentum to slash his sword across the base of one tentacle, a tentacle as wide as his own waist, and he severed it clean off. The dismembered end of the whipping arm fell to the fleshy ground and continued to writhe all of its own accord, straining out toward Eleanor as though it might still have a chance of catching her despite the fact that it was no longer attached to the body that sought her out. Eleanor leapt over the limb like she was jumping rope, grabbed her staff and shot at it a few bolts of icy cold, freezing the disembodied arm to make it come to rest.

"Eleanor, go!" Cullen shouted and pointed to the more narrow of the two passageways leading out of the room, and she took off as fast as she could, but the springy, sucking nature of the living floor slowed her down, and she couldn't compensate quickly enough when another tentacle, this one still attached, reached out and wrapped itself around her legs, knocking her face-down into the fetid, fleshy ground and began to drag her slowly toward the broodmother, who shrieked and gurgled only a few yards away.

"Fuck you!" Eleanor shouted and sent cold all through her body, trying to repeat her trick from before, if not entirely to freeze the arm, at least to slow it down enough that she could get herself free. It didn't work. "God damn it!" she shouted, and reached for her gun, her staff, but her gun was held tightly to her side by the same tentacle that drug her; her staff, she now realized, she had dropped shock after having been grabbed. Her "fuck yous" quickly turned into "fuck mes" as she shouted for any kind of assistance, using up all the magic, the mana she had at her disposal to stun or freeze or harm the tentacle around her, scrabbling at, tearing through the fleshy thing wrapped around her waist, turning her gloves rancid-smelling and bloody as she desperately tried to free herself just enough to grab at a vial of lyrium.

Varric was shooting the soft body of the thing with arrow after arrow, leaping skillfully out of the way of the way of the whipping arms, trying to stop the tentacles at the source or at least piss off the thing enough to drop Eleanor and focus on him, or anything but her. Dorian was dutifully blasting the other tentacles with his staff, or casting spells to panic the creature into forfeiting its concentration; anything to keep the arms, the beast away from Cullen, who was slashing his way through the forest of limbs to get to the bottom of the one that grasped Eleanor.

Every cry, every scream the broodmother emitted made Eleanor feel a little more unsteady, a little more sick, though that might have just been the expenditure of all of her mana, and her inability to draw breath, to regain focus, bring back her mana more quickly, now that the tentacle squeezed her more tightly. She had stopped herself at her limit, unwilling to pass out in the grasp of this horrible monster the way she was willing to drop in Cullen's arms. Her fingers still bit into the flesh of the thing but despite the injuries she had inflicted upon it, it only seemed to anger the beast. And then she was being lifted, lifted up until her face was even with the broodmother's, and Eleanor saw their the bare remnants of something that had clearly once been human.

Eye to eye with the creature, Eleanor let out a blood-curdling scream and phased through the arm of the beast.

The broodmother shrieked, recoiling in pain.

Cullen felt the sudden rush of magic above him and looked up, dropping his sword just in time to extend his arms and catch Eleanor as she fell ten, fifteen feet into his grasp. She sucked in her first deep breath in what was probably only seconds but felt like days, and Cullen set her gently on her feet, reaching for his blade quickly, staying behind Eleanor now as he pushed her toward the tunnel once more.

Dorian and Varric pulled in close to the pair, firing off arrows, blasts, and Eleanor joined them once her staff was back in her grip. She hated that the blood from her gloves stained the beautiful staff red, but the feeling passed in an instant, the superficial overcome by the immediate danger, the immediate need to get out of this room. She could worry about her staff later, or not at all. It was a stupid thing; the only real concern was that it made the grip slick in her hands as she shot blast after blast of cold into the tentacles in front of her, clearing a path with Dorian while Varric and Cullen took care of the rear. When they were at the very edge of the room, just before the mouth of the cave, Cullen shoved her hard from behind, sending her reeling into the unlit path before her. She felt herself stumble, and almost bit it on the floor, but she thrust out the bottom of her staff and righted herself, careening into the wall with her left hand extended out to catch her. She turned around and was just about to shout at Cullen, curse him for almost breaking her face, but she saw all three men now blocking the mouth of the tunnel, fighting not just the tentacles, but a party of darkspawn - a patrol? - that had come through the larger tunnel. There were only three, two genlocks and a hurlock, but on top of the grasping tentacles, some of which were close enough to reach into the mouth of the tunnel, they were a serious threat.

Eleanor took in a deep breath, the breath she had sought while being squeezed, dragged, and, cooling down, she felt her mana surge back. She reached skyward, focusing on a point above the heads of the darkspawn, and brought a storm down on them, slowing them, freezing them in their tracks. Cullen backed away and Dorian and Varric followed, still aiming blasts at the frozen creatures, the flailing tentacles. Once they were all out of the broodmother's grasp, they watched one of the arms reach down now and sweep up the darkspawn, one each in a limb. The broodmother brought them to her mouth now, and began to eat them.

"Jesus Christ," Eleanor groaned as they continued to back away. "Was that what she was going to do to me?"

"I… think she had other plans for you, Farm Girl."

"Some other time, Varric," Cullen said forcefully.


	43. Hundreds of Miles Away

Despite their exhaustion, they followed the tunnel quickly, noting with glee that this one seemed to be taking them up and up and up. Though the incline made their legs burn, made their emptying packs feel heavier than when they were freshly filled, they were glad to follow it, and did so at the most rapid pace they could comfortably sustain.

"I just thought," said Eleanor, leaning up against a wall as they paused for breath, to drink, and to eat some of the dry food they carried along, "we have no idea where this is going to take us. Even if it takes us above ground, even if this path lets us out of here with nothing else in between, we could be hundreds of miles away from the farm."

Cullen shook his head. "How far could these darkspawn be spreading?"

"Fuck that," said Eleanor, " I was thinking, how the hell are we going to get home?"

"Well, we've walked this far," Varric offered.

Dorian only groaned and slid further down the wall.

* * *

A few hours after escaping the broodmother, the air began to smell fresh. Not just free of the stench of decay, but clean. Crisp. And cold.

Eleanor hugged her cloak close, flipped her hood up over her head. Even still, she shivered. Cullen was dressed warmly, but there was a pink in his cheeks from the dropping temperature, and Dorian had a cloak too, as well as several layers of cloth and armor, but she couldn't imagine how Varric was staying warm. Maybe it was the hair on his chest. Maybe it was his sheer obstinace.

Rubbing her bloody gloves together, working warmth into her fingers, Eleanor breathed out, and her breath clouded the air in front of her. She found it ironic that winter was the season she hated the most, so of course it was the thing she had found most easy to control with her new-found powers. Maybe it made sense, taking over and exerting control on the one thing she'd never been able to change. She still hated winter, though.

"Look," Cullen's word brought her out of her reverie. Up ahead, the path leveled out, and opened up, and beyond, Eleanor could see a dark sky, blotted over with clouds, and from them came gently falling snow.

She dropped to her knees.

They were free.

* * *

They stepped out into the night, into the snow. Eleanor looked around, and saw nothing she could put her finger on. The air made her teeth chatter and she wrapped her arms around herself. There were no roads, no signs, no landmarks she could place. Just a lot of pine trees and rolling hills. They could literally be anywhere within a hundred miles of home.

"Any ideas?" Cullen asked her.

"Not a fucking one," she said through clacking teeth. "Maybe south. In the mountains. That's all I've got."

"We either need to get moving or find a place to stay," Varric said, taking a few steps out in front of them. The snow came up to his calves, came up to everyone else's ankles. "Even just to make a camp."

Eleanor nodded quickly.

"Alright," said Cullen. "We're all exhausted. Let's get far enough away from this Maker-forsaken tunnel and find somewhere to spend the night. There's no point freezing to death trying to find a way home when we don't even know where we are." He looked up at the heavy, grey sky, unable to make out even a single star. The clouds threatened worse weather, and maybe soon. There was no way to know.

The tunnel had brought them out on the broad side of a cliff face, and they walked along it, making to circle it, but it only stretched on and on and on. Dorian tried to hide his sniffles, blotting his reddening nose with a handkerchief he carried - of course he did, Eleanor thought with a smile - and Cullen rubbed his arms with his hands, as though it would do anything to warm him through gloves and armor. Eleanor found it harder and harder to trudge on through the slowly depending slow, and just when she thought she was ready to drop, they spotted a huge rocky overhang up ahead. They had to be at least a mile from the tunnel now, plenty far enough to camp, to build a fire, to actually sleep.

The overhang had a recess in the cliff under it, going maybe seven feet inward, and it gave them plenty of shelter from the wind which had picked up and begun to howl like a lonely wolf, whistling through the trees and bringing heavier snow with it. They unrolled their blankets, and Cullen quickly gathered wood for a fire from the bases of the pines, or sometimes reaching up into the trees to snap off lower branches. The air was so cold that the wood was dry despite the snow, and with a little help from Dorian's magic, they had a fire going in moments. Eleanor dug through her pack for a small metal pot and shoveled snow into it - no point wasting bottled water - and held it carefully over the flame until steam rose. She was too tired to wait for it to boil. Into four small tin cups she dunked tea bags, and splashed the water on top, passing everyone a cup. They huddled together in the back of the crevasse, shoulder to shoulder, and drank down their warm tea, stoking and feeding the fire once last time before they all fell soundly asleep.


	44. I'm Not an Expert on Foliage

Eleanor woke up first, still tired, but the sun had risen on wherever they were. That wasn't what had woken her up, though. It was the incredible pressure in her bladder. She groaned as though annoyed at her very body, and freed herself from her blanket, from Cullen's arm around her, from Dorian who had slid over to rest on her shoulder. She hoped he hadn't drooled on her cloak. Wiggling her way from the tangle of blankets and limbs, she adjusted herself, twisting the front of her robes back to the front of her body, and pulling up her tights, she left the small crevasse and stepped gently through the snow - now well past her ankles - to find a place to relieve herself.

She found a pine tree that was growing right next to the continuing cliff face about twenty feet away, far enough for her to feel like she had some privacy, but close enough that she didn't feel like she was wandering away.

The simple act of peeing while wearing thick woolen tights and calf-length robes was an art in and of itself, one that Eleanor had slowly perfected in the tunnels, ever more jealous of the other members of her party who did not seem to have that problem. But now that she had a tree to lean against, and after much practice, she did the deed like she'd had to do it this way forever. She righted herself, adjusted her clothes once more, and picked up a handful of snow to clean her hands. She had brought a dozen tiny bottles of hand sanitizer from a particularly fragrant shop she hated to admit she frequented, but she had left them back with her things where the others were still sleeping, so she left her gloves tucked into her sash and turned to go back.

And she screamed.

* * *

It was Dorian who snapped awake at the sound, shoving Varric away from him and throwing off his blankets. He stood up and grabbed his staff, giving Cullen only a cursory kick before leaving the small cave and following, as best as he could, the sound of Eleanor's cry.

Cullen got up, not quite as quickly as Dorian; he was stiff from the cold, roused from a dream, but his fingers found his sword and he pulled himself up and out of his bedroll, trudging quickly through the snow, catching words from Dorian as he approached.

"Put that thing down, Eleanor, you'll catch the Blight!" he was a chastising tone of voice. Dorian had his hands on his hips and Eleanor seemed to be unharmed, holding something; it was only as Cullen shook of the final dregs of sleep that he realized Eleanor's scream was actually a squeal of delight.

Varric had noticed the commotion and walked past Cullen to reprimand Dorian, "That's not true, Sparkler, and you know it."

Eleanor giggled and pressed the thing closer to her face. "I know it's not true, yes, I know," she said, speaking to the creature like it was an infant. It chittered in her embrace. She looked up and said, "I have no idea what this thing is but I'm keeping it."

Cullen pressed his forehead hard into the palms of his hands. "It's a nug," he said. "It's a fucking nug." He dropped his arms, defeated, and looked around, looked at the trees, looked at the terrain, looked at the sun in the now crystal-blue sky above him, and didn't know whether to laugh or to cry. "Ferelden. We're in fucking Ferelden."

Eleanor dropped the cat-sized pink creature and it landed softly in the snow, squeaking quietly as it jumped away. "That's not… how…" she looked around, trying to fix her eyes on something that would confirm or deny this assertion. She saw nothing. She could have been anywhere, high up in the mountains, from about October to April. She could have been a hundred miles from home. She could have been somewhere on the east coast. She could have been in Idaho, Washington, Oregon, Montana.

She could not be in Thedas.

Dorian turned and walked away, throwing up his hands. "I have to eat something first. I cannot have this conversation on an empty stomach."

"We can't have walked to Thedas," Eleanor lifted her face up to the sky, turning in a circle. "You guys need weird magic and some kind of a Breach to - to - We walked! Walked!"

"El, I know," Cullen said, quiet but stern. "Believe me. I know." He took in a deep breath through his nose, sniffing in the cold.

Varric circled around, looking at rocks, trees, little plants that poked up through the snow. "Now, I'm not an expert on foliage, but," he pointed a gloved finger down at a curly green vine, "I'm pretty sure that's elfroot."

Eleanor closed her eyes, eyelids fluttering for a moment as she held back something - tears? a scream? - before she opened them again with an expression of resignation. "Well, fine. What do we do now?"

"If it were up to me," Varric said, crossing his arms in front of his bare chest. "I'd say we follow Sparkler, get something to eat, and get back to Skyhold."

"Yes," Cullen agreed. "The Inquisitor will know what to do."

"Can she get us back home?" Eleanor asked.

He looked at Eleanor and nodded firmly. "She'd better."

* * *

They ate, extinguished their fire, scattered the ashes, and after readjusting their packs, were off into the snow. They walked along the cliff face until they came to a road sign, which pointed helpfully in only one direction: toward Redcliff.

"Well then," said Dorian, "We just have to walk the opposite way."

"How far is it?" Eleanor asked.

"Not far," Cullen assured her.

* * *

It turned out that "not far" meant they walked until the sun began to lower itself down on the horizon, and the path they were on started to climb up a steep mountain pass. As much as Eleanor wanted to sit and rest, to eat something that wasn't dried or prepackaged, to drink something that wasn't snow water out of half-crushed plastic bottles, she couldn't help but notice the world around her as she passed it by. She kept expecting something weird, something obviously foreign to pop up, something that absolutely could have not come from earth, from her earth. There were old cottages and strange sculptures, crumbling brick walls along the side of the road, their cracking mortar filled up with snow, and all of it looked ancient, but nothing about it was strange. It was all made with conventional materials, made presumably by hand, made perhaps by the travellers they passed every now and again as they walked. But even the people looked normal. Aside from the dirt path, the abundance of greenery, the absolute lack of modern technology - anything past what she would peg as about 1600, but she was no historian, she couldn't say for sure - there was nothing that stood out to her and said, no. You absolutely cannot be home.

Until she saw Skyhold.

Eleanor brought her hand to her mouth and stopped in her tracks.

"Welcome…" Cullen said, pausing to think of a word, words to use, but the only thing he could find on his lips was, "home."


	45. Now, as Ever, Pardoned

On the steps of of the fortress, the Inquisitor met them. She was dressed in brown pants and high boots, a blue jacket, and a white scarf. She had red hair that came to her shoulders and bright green eyes, and freckles on her pale skin. She was a little taller than Eleanor, but not much, and not at all the intimidating figure that Eleanor had pictured her as.

As they climbed toward her, slowly, exhausted, Eleanor heard the woman call out in a soft, high voice: "I'm going to need to know what happened, you know, but Maker is it good to see you all back." The Inquisitor a few steps forward, reached out, and embraced Eleanor. "It is so good to finally meet you," and at first Eleanor was confused as to how she'd been recognized, but then she remembered her robes, "Thank you for all that you've done for us."

"It's been my pleasure, Inquisitor Tre-" Eleanor struggled to remember, her cold and tired brain piecing together memories, "Trevelyan."

"I'll say," said Dorian, cocking an eyebrow at Cullen, who elbowed the mage in the ribs.

"Please," the Inquisitor put one arm on Eleanor's shoulder. "Call me Evelyn."

Eleanor nodded almost reverently, because she was tired, and she was not sure what to do - bow? grovel? shake hands? high-five? This woman seemed like she would be okay more with the last two than the first, but Eleanor decided to air on the side of caution.

Trevelyan took a step back, a step up, and looked at the four of them, tired and covered in muck.

"You all look awful. Get some rest. We can talk in the morning. Eleanor, I'll have quarters prepared for you as quickly as possible. Until then you can -"

Dorian began to snicker, and Varric looked around as though he had nothing to say, clearly indicating that he had something to say.

"Something you two would like to share?" said the Inquisitor, like an overbearing mother.

Eleanor was going to keep her mouth shut - she didn't know what the etiquette her was; she and Cullen weren't married, probably would never be, Eleanor was not big on that kind of thing anyway, and they hadn't been properly dating very long in any case, if they even were, she didn't know, hardly knew anything anymore. Dorian and Varric had taken it in stride so much as they had been told, which was that they had been told nothing except that Cullen was spending the night in her room now, had for a week or so, and he held her while they slept in the Deep Roads. They seemed only to pick on Cullen for the kind of person he was, two friends making jabs at a man who had been single for far too long, though as far as she knew, neither the mage nor the dwarf were attached; they all seemed to have their own hang-ups. So, no, Eleanor was going to remain quiet and accept her own quarters while Dorian and Varric chuckled and made faces while Cullen slowly turned red, because she didn't think she would be here that long anyway.

But it was Cullen, not either of the other two, who spoke up, albeit softly. "If you'll pardon those two idiots, Inquisitor…"

"They are now, as ever, pardoned," she said with a small laugh.

Reaching out, Cullen took Eleanor's hand and said quietly, but steadily, "Separate quarters won't be necessary," and he looked from Eleanor to Evelyn and back, "if that's alright with you," and back again, "both."

Eleanor sputtered for a minute, and then acquiesced, "I mean, yeah, of course."

The Inquisitor smiled in a way that made her eyes light up, but the manner in which her mouth turned up said that she was with Dorian and Varric and had some choice words for the commander just as soon as Eleanor was out of earshot - out of respect, of course. She reached out and slapped Cullen on his arm. "Of course, Commander. I'll have your quarters freshened up. Light a fire. It's been a cold one," she said. "Eleanor, I'll have some fresh clothes brought for you." The Inquisitor eyed the woman up and down. "You look about my size. I'll dig through my wardrobe, see what I can't dig up."

"Oh, but I couldn't -"

"Yeah, well, you're gonna," Trevelyan said with a laugh. "You're a mess. You're all a mess. Get cleaned up. Eleanor, I'll show you where the baths are."

* * *

Eleanor liked the Inquisitor very much, she decided, after having a bath with water from a hot spring, and dressing in a shirt that was soft and white and felt like silk and worn-in leather pants, and having her hair brushed and braided for her by a talkative woman who then wrapped a thick shawl over Eleanor's shoulders and showed her the way to Cullen's chambers. It was dark, and the wind whipped fiercely around Eleanor's face and she hugged the shawl to herself and walked up a long set of stairs to a tower some yards away from the main keep. The woman indicated to Eleanor that this was the door she wanted, then hurried away, Eleanor hoped, to get somewhere warm. Then Eleanor reached out, and tugged open the heavy wooden door.

Within was a beautiful study, the walls covered in bookshelves, lit softly by candles and the promised fireplace. There was a red rug on the floor, and a solid wooden desk, covered messily in books and papers and quills. Behind the desk stood the commander, leaning over his current project, one hand down on a scroll, the other clutching a quill, the tip brought to his mouth, tapping against his teeth. He looked almost like someone she didn't know, and she hesitated, though he must have heard the door open. Eleanor shut it now against the cold, and his eyes went to her now, clad in her white silken top with silver frogs, soft brown beaten leather pants. They were nightclothes, or casual clothes, too soft to serve any real function and too simple to be worn alone when out and about, but whatever they were, they were of the highest quality. She had been offered boots, but Eleanor didn't think she would be walking far, and so she slipped on delicate black flats, crafted of some study cloth. Her hair was braided up elaborately on her head in a wide crown. Her cheeks were pink with cold, but here in the warm study, she let the shawl slide down from her neck where she had been clutching it, letting it rest on her shoulders.

"You look like you belong here," he said.

"Could say the same for you," Eleanor laughed, meaning it as a joke, but of course he did. Even in his white t-shirts and jeans, he'd looked a little out of place back in Indiana - if only a little - back in what Eleanor had previously considered the real world, though it was now all too obvious that this place, this Thedas, this Skyhold, was just as real. "It's, uh, it's nice here. Different than I thought it would be."

"Different how?" he set down his quill and met her halfway across the room.

Eleanor shrugged. "Well, I guess I hadn't put much thought into it. I thought it would be… Rougher? This place is incredible."

He reached out and wrapped his arms around her, she brought her arms up to rest on his shoulders. "Not all of it is. Skyhold was in ruins when we first arrived." He looked off to the side, losing his train of thought.

"Getting all misty-eyed?"

"Not at all. The opposite. It was so much work. I was just… It has been an awfully long time." He reached up and ran a gloved thumb across her cheek. The material was rough but not unpleasant, and she pressed into his touch. She closed her eyes against it and sighed.

"You haven't even changed your clothes," she remarked.

"Sorry," he said, "I wanted to get this done," he tipped his head in the direction of his desk, "before bed."

"Oh, bed. I'm so ready for bed," Eleanor stretched her arms up to the sky before bringing them to rest beside Cullen's neck once more.

"Alright, alright," he released her and went back to the desk, lifting his quill. "I'll do this now. You can get settled in, if you want. I'll be quick, and then…" he took a tentative whiff of himself; after days in the Deep Roads without changing his clothes, being damp and cold, and then hot and sweaty, and then cold once more, not to mention the strange darkspawn muck he was almost certainly covered in, to say that the commander smelled like a wet dog would have been overly generous. "...then I'll bathe. But then I promise I'll be right there."

"Promises, promises," said Eleanor with folded arms, but they both knew she didn't mean it. "So," she said, surveying the beautiful room once more, "where… is bed?"

Cullen pointed wordlessly to the ladder off to the side, without taking his eyes off of his work.

Eleanor stared him down, unamused, but he was once more consumed by his task and the effort was wasted. Slowly, and with aching limbs, Eleanor climbed the ladder to bed.


	46. I Think You Might Need a Bigger Map

It was less than an hour later when Cullen followed suit, but Eleanor had kicked off her soft black shoes, loosed the laces on her trousers, undid the first few frogs at the top of her shift, and slid under the blankets, promptly falling asleep. Cullen smiled; he felt as tired as she looked. He pulled back the heavy blankets to slip in beside her, and found Eleanor clutching the soft, thick shawl she had been given like a child.

Swiffer, he thought. Eleanor must be missing the cat terribly. Even he had appeased the feline with extra pets and scratches in the days before they left; he loved the creature too, but Swiffer was not his. Swiffer was Eleanor's, and Swiffer was alone. They would have to get back to Indiana no matter what, especially now that they knew what might not even be the full scale of the Blight, and it was huge, but Cullen would press to leave as quickly as possible, for Eleanor. For the cat. Love was making him soft, he knew, but he didn't have the heart to fight it. Or perhaps it was precisely because he had the heart that he couldn't fight.

The air around him was chilly, and he quickly found space for himself under the covers, reaching out to clutch Eleanor to him. They had survived. He had taken her, this unprepared human thing, this infant mage, into what had somehow turned out to be the Deep Roads, and they had lived. They had all lived. And Eleanor had performed admirably, not just in combat, but mentally. She was so strong. She had seen so much, so much strangeness, and instead of tucking tail and running, or shooting at them and screaming for them - at them - to get off of her land, she had invited the strangeness into her home, her world, become friends with it, and now… this, he thought, as he pressed his cheek against her still-damp but immaculately braided hair. She smelled like roses, most likely from the water of the bath, but whatever the reason, it was enchanting to him. Soothing. He found himself suddenly unable to imagine a world without it, without her - well, no, that was only half true. He could imagine a life that had him here, alone at Skyhold, returning to his old duties, and Eleanor going home to her farm, maybe once the Blight was over, and he hated every moment of it. It was a foolish thought, and he knew it. Anything could happen.

But he didn't want anything to happen. He just wanted this.

He was tired, and he knew it, and he was thinking sentimental thoughts that he might still agree with in the morning, but which wouldn't affect him so powerfully.

Cullen was beginning to allow himself to drift off when Eleanor seemed to rouse a bit, turning over in his arms to face him.

"Hey, you," she said, softly, her voice broken with sleep.

"'Lo, El," he answered.

She hugged the blanket tighter, and mumbled, without opening her eyes, "You told the Inquisitor about us."

"I did."

"That's…" she yawned, lost her original thought. "So this is a real thing."

Did she mean their relationship? The Inquisition? Thedas? All of it was real - at least, he thought so, wanted to think so, regarding the first point, so he only answered the half-asleep woman, "It's real."

"Good," she said, "I like it," which helped him discern her meaning not at all, but it didn't matter. Her breathing shifted and she was out again, fast asleep.

"Sweet dreams," he breathed to her, kissing the top of her plaited head before joining her in sleep.

* * *

They stood around a massive table, covered with a giant map. The Inquisitor was there, as was Cullen, and Dorian and Varric. There were two other women who had been quickly introduced to Eleanor as Leliana - so this was Leliana, this smiling woman with flaming red hair, not like the Inquisitor's coppery locks, hair almost like Eleanor's mother - and Josephine, a beautiful brown-skinned woman with thick black hair and lovely grey eyes. Women everywhere, Eleanor thought. Certainly this was the biggest difference between Thedas and her world, her Earth. She couldn't say she didn't like it.

Then the door swung open behind them and the sound of harried, heavy breathing entered, as if someone had just sprinted up a few flights of stairs to meet them.

"My apologies, Inquisitor," said an incredibly tall woman, the kind of intimidating person Eleanor had thought the Inquisitor herself would be, "Divine Victoria," the woman gave a small bow to Leliana as she found her place at the table beside Josephine.

"Cassandra," said Leliana in a chirpy voice, bright with an accent and lovely too, "I have told you time and time again that you don't have to call me that. Especially not here," she put her hands out in front of her, open and welcoming. and whatever being Divine meant, Eleanor could see why she was it. Her face was creamy and radiant, and the small lines that had begun to take hold around her eyes only made her visage all the more friendly, playful, and maybe a bit secretive.

"Of course, Leliana. Habit," the woman called Cassandra said, but gave Leliana another almost reverential bow as though in deliberate defiance of her own words. Leliana only smiled, shaking her head and rolling her eyes.

"Our final introduction then," said the woman called Josephine, reaching her hand out to indicate Eleanor. "Cassandra, this is our liaison, Eleanor Redgrove of Indiana." Good lord, did that sound awkward, Eleanor thought as Josephine continued. "Lady Eleanor," more awkward still, "this is Lady Cassandra Allegra Portia Calogera Filomena Pentaghast, Seeker, Hero of Orlais, and as always, Right Hand of the Divine," and as Josephine spoke, Leliana gave the stern-looking woman a wink.

"Yes, well," Cassandra said, dismissing her own titles, "'Cassandra' is fine. She extended her hand over the table to Eleanor. She had an accent all her own, and it made her strong voice seem all the more powerful. "A pleasure to meet you, Lady Eleanor. I've heard much about you."

"It seems everyone has," she said, and gave Cullen a mock-serious look.

"Now that we've got that over with," the Inquisitor now took charge, "let's get down to business. Cullen, you and your people engaged in an exploratory mission into the ravine in Indiana," she said, pulling another map across the table and unrolling it on top of the map of a portion of Thedas. Using two heavy stone markers, she weighed down the edges, and pointed at the ravine. "Care to tell us what you found?"

Cullen took a deep breath and opened his mouth, then lifted his eyebrows and said, "I think you might need a bigger map."

There was some confusion from the occupants of the room who had not taken part on their excursion, and so Cullen began, speaking slowly, trying to put his thoughts in order. Josephine immediately began to take notes.

"We entered the ravine at the northern end," he pointed on the map, "and traversed the length of the ravine toward the south. We encountered no darkspawn for… hours?" he looked to Varric and Dorian who nodded, "and the first group we encountered we were able to avoid; they were in a side passage and we heard them before we saw them. I can't say for sure how many may have been in this group, but it's our belief," he looked to Eleanor now, "that this must have been a routine patrol due to…" he paused and looked for words, "...to what we saw later." He stopped, put his hand to his mouth, took a deep breath. Eleanor knew two things: that this was who Cullen was, and that, still, even the memory of what he had seen disturbed him.

"We continued for some time, until the ravine closed overhead. There were side passages along the length of the tunnel, but without knowing for sure where they might lead, and with limited light and supplies, as well as threat of getting lost, we continued along the main artery until we stopped to rest. I would say we had been in the ravine for eight to twelve hours. Maybe a bit more. We found a deeper recess in the wall to rest in. Dorian and Varric kept watch and woke Eleanor and myself when they heard sounds. They were deepstalkers, not darkspawn, and we took them down handily, I would say," giving a small nod of acknowledgement to Eleanor.

"Deepstalkers?" asked Cassandra. "How -"

"Let him finish, Cassandra. We can talk about details later," the Inquisitor said.

Cullen nodded his thanks.

"After the deepstalkers, we continued on, until the composition of the tunnel itself seemed to change. Whereas before it had been entirely dark, now there was light that Varric suggested was from lava flows, as he had knowledge of such things in and around the dwarven city of Orzammar. His intuition was correct, and we soon found ourselves in what appeared to be…" here Cullen paused and took off his glove to rub his brow, looking down and away, as he said, "...what appeared to be a section of the Deep Roads." He put out his hands to silence the entire War Council and continued before they could object. "This… well, I won't say that this will become more clear, because quite frankly, it won't."

"Look, all I'm saying is that I know a statue of Astyth when I see one," added Varric helpfully. When he received only confused looks in response, Cullen assisted.

"There was a statue, perhaps seven feet tall, of obviously dwarven make. Varric identified it as Astyth the Grey, Paragon and founder of the Silent Sisters."

"Spot on, Curly."

"Alright," Cassandra accepted their testimony with a hesitant sigh. "Go on." She crossed her arms and frowned.

"Again we travelled some distance along this new road, before we heard a rumbling in the depths. After some moments, the Archdemon appeared, and we," Cullen paused to take a breath, the words seeming to be difficult.

"We fled for our god damned lives," Eleanor inserted, sensing Cullen's hesitation, "I'm not at all ashamed to say."

"No indeed," said Leliana. "Commander? If you're able."

"Of course, Leliana," but his voice was shaking more now. "We quickly found a tunnel that seemed more finished than the other we had passed and utilized it as a matter of necessity. From the tunnel, we saw the Archdemon pass - to where and what end, I cannot say, as it was followed by a veritable army of darkspawn from which we saw fit to -"

"Run like hell again," Eleanor said and then slapped hands over her mouth. She wasn't trying to interrupt him, only to ease some of the tenseness that seemed to be radiating from the man, and when she shot him a wink and he stifled a laugh, she considered her work done. Behind Cullen's back, Dorian gave her a small thumbs-up.

"Alright, alright," he said with a deep breath. "Yes, we ran. But not before we watched the army pass, and decided it would be ill-advised to follow. It was impossible to count but, Inquisitor, there were hundreds. At least. Maybe thousands.

"Unable to go back the way we came, we proceeded further into the tunnel, and came upon an antechamber with several other tunnels leading off in other directions around the room. Unable to decide a better method, we, well, we went straight." He clicked his jaw from left to right. "Some distance down this passageway was a broodmother, which we fought, as well as a few darkspawn." Well, thought Eleanor. That was abridged. "Once the darkspawn were defeated we made our way through an opposing passage and eventually found ourselves above ground once more, but due to the late hour and the snow clouds obscuring the stars, we had no accurate way of discovering our location without further travel. We were exhausted, and so passed the night in a small cave. In the morning Eleanor encountered a creature which it turned out was a nug, and after a mile or so walking we found a road marker that informed us we were not terribly far from Redcliff."

The silence was palpable.

Josephine was the one to break it. "Pardon me, Commander?"

Cullen's military resolve cracked. "I know what it sounds like."

"Well, I'm glad you do, because I certainly don't," said the Inquisitor, looking at the map of Indiana, then picked it up, knocking over the markers as she found Redcliff on the larger map with her finger.

"Well," said Dorian, offering assistance, "I present you with the fact that we, after only walking, admittedly for some days, are here."

"I guess I can't argue with that," said Trevelyan, letting the smaller map of Eleanor's home fall once again to the table as it curled up on itself.

"But how can this be!" asked Cassandra, throwing her hands up in the air. "I'll admit, I almost couldn't believe it when this rift passed through the Fade and to - to -" she looked to Eleanor for help.

"Indiana, I guess?"

"Indiana!" The disgust in her voice was thick, and Eleanor hoped it wasn't for her home but for the absolute breakdown of reality that seemed to be occurring. "But at least there was precedent for that! People have stepped into the Fade! But to get here from there just by walking? Unheard of!"

"Yeah, well, now it's heard of, Seeker," said Varric, dismissively. "The question is… Actually I've got a couple of questions, and I'm pretty sure you people will have a lot more."

"To be sure," answered Leliana.

"And I can tell you we certainly don't have any answers," assured Cullen.

All eyes seemed to turn to Eleanor. Her own eyes widened in shock. "Well, don't look at me," she said, partially indignant, partially ashamed. "I didn't know that there was a Fade until June."


	47. Our Honored Guest

With no one able to answer any further questions, they all departed the War Room in silence.

Leliana quickly caught up to Eleanor and asked her, hands clasped behind her back, "How are you finding your magic?"

"Uh," she looked up to Cullen, unsure of how much she should say. Cullen gave her a nod that signalled this was not his discussion, and he picked up his pace to give the two women room. Cassandra and Josephine, and Dorian and Varric hurried past. "Useful," Eleanor confessed. "Dorian discovered that I have a bit of a knack for healing," she said, and thought of the gaping wound in Pavus' arm, the horrible gashes on Cullen's back.

"Indeed!" Leliana seemed delighted. "Cullen had mentioned you discovered your powers by accident?"

Eleanor nodded. "I… don't know how much he told you. We went out… drinking," she winced. It sounded so bad, telling this dignified and yet playful woman that she'd gotten shitfaced with the Commander of the Inquisition and fallen in love with him.

Well, she'd been in love with him before that. Maybe.

Leliana was unphased. She smiled more broadly, if anything, and encouraged Eleanor to continue.

"Yeah, there was a bit of a, a dispute. I was cornered and alone, and I guess something in me knew it needed to save me - save itself - save myself -" Eleanor sputtered.

"I understand. That must have been very frightening for you," Leliana empathized.

"It… it was." No one had said that to her before. Not even Dorian. Cullen seemed to understand it, but also to want to talk about it as little as possible.

"So much in your world has changed, has it not?" Leliana asked her.

"Well, for me at least. I don't know that anyone else has even been affected. I - I got the letters from your agents. But, you know, I'm not sure the general population has even noticed. I might be wrong. Especially with the Archdemon." Eleanor took a deep breath through her nose, and rephrased, as much as she could. "Yeah. A lot has changed."

Leliana laughed a laugh like windchimes. "You seem overwhelmed. I suppose that's understandable. You're holding up very well, even still." Leliana stopped, reaching out to take Eleanor's hand. "I know you're probably eager to get home. But you're welcome here in Skyhold for as long as you need or want to stay. Isn't that right, Inquisitor?" Leliana turned and gave a smile to Trevelyan who was following slowly behind.

"Oh, absolutely."

"And of course you know our Inquisitor is also a mage?" offered Leliana. "Though you seem to be quite capable."

Eleanor bowed her head a little bit, not yet willing to take credit for her burgeoning magic. She'd almost killed herself with it, after all.

"Thank you, Leliana," Eleanor said. It was all getting to be a bit much, and Evelyn seemed to noticed.

"Say," said the Inquisitor. "why don't we grab a drink? Just us girls? I'd invite you, of course, Leliana, but I'm not sure it's proper for Divine Victoria to be giggling into her cups at the Herald's Rest."

"Inquisitor! I'll have a glass of wine when and where I very well please!" She said it with gentle humor, and added, "But with this new information I've got so many messages to send…" she sighed.

"When are you needed back in Orlais?" Trevelyan asked.

"Oh, immediately, I expect. But for the moment, I believe it's fair to assume that this takes precedence. I should get to work. If you need me, Inquisitor, you know where to find me." She excused herself.

"I've wanted to ask - Divine what now?" Eleanor asked Evelyn when Leliana was out of earshot.

"She's the head of the Chantry," the Inquisitor said with a shrug.

Oh, thought Eleanor. Is that all.

* * *

"You understand that this means that the Blight is now our problem as well?" Eleanor followed Evelyn from the War Room into Skyhold's main hall, and overheard Cassandra's thickly accented voice as they rounded the corner.

"We can't be sure of that Cassandra," Cullen answered, as the two came into view. Evelyn held out her hand to stop Eleanor, to keep from interrupting the argument. "We haven't seen anymore darkspawn than normal, and from what we saw in the Deep Roads, everything seemed to be headed away from here."

"You don't know what you saw in the Deep Roads, Commander!"

"Cassandra, I -"

"And how would you know if there had been more darkspawn! You haven't been here in months!"

"I have been doing my job!" he shot back. "And I would have a much better report for you if I had been able to send more than four people down there, Seeker!" he pointed his finger accusingly at her.

"Am I supposed to be moved? The Empire is falling apart and threatening to take the Inquisition down with it. Excuse me for trying to save us!"

"And I am doing everything I can to stop this Blight, but I can only do so much with the resources I've been given!"

"Oh," said Cassandra, leaning back, and putting one hand on her hip, the other pointing back at him now in retaliation. "I can think of one resource I hear you've been using rather well. And a mage, Cullen? Of course it would be a mage!"

"You're crossing a line, Cassandra," Cullen said, lowering his voice as he narrowed his eyes.

Evelyn took a step forward, keeping her arm out to shepherd Eleanor behind her still, behind the open door and out of sight. She wouldn't have needed to, Eleanor was frozen with a combination of shock and rage at this woman, this Cassandra. Just who the hell did she think she was, Eleanor wondered. "Have you got a problem with mages, Cassandra?"

"Inquisitor!" The woman's dark grey eyes grew wide with shock. "Of course - I mean - I didn't mean you, Inquisitor."

"I don't think you should mean anyone," she said boldly, and scratched the tip of her nose thoughtfully. "Cullen, I apologize. I'll get you your troops. I didn't realize the ravine would be so vast, and I certainly didn't expect you to be able to take a walking tour of Thedas on your way out. That was my mistake. Orlais will not burn for the loss of a score of troops. And Cassandra, Cullen's personal business is entirely his own, but I would be remiss if I didn't add that Eleanor so far seems to be a quite clever and immensely helpful woman who is behind that door and has heard every word you've just said."

Eleanor bashfully stepped out from around the door, and Cassandra's olive cheeks flared into a shocking shade of red. "It's… you're frustrated, I understand," said Eleanor, diplomatically, "and I guess mages don't have the best reputation around here…" she let her voice trail off but Cullen picked it back up.

"You absolutely don't need to defend yourself to her," he spat. "And neither do I," he added, almost as an afterthought.

"Inquisitor… I…" Cassandra sputtered.

"If you're going to apologize, don't do it to me. Do it to her," and Evelyn pointed at Eleanor, who still stood some feet behind.

"It's really not necessary," Eleanor offered.

"Oh, I should think it is," said Cullen, still fuming.

"Cullen," Eleanor cautioned. "It's alright. It really is. You don't know me. I don't know you," she told Cassandra.

"And I'm going to take this chance to get to know our honored guest," Trevelyan stretched out these last words, "better. You're welcome to join us, Cassandra. Commander, I don't have to tell you. Come on, Eleanor. There's ale with your name on it."


	48. You're the One with The Blight

The fact that Herald's Rest was an honest-to-goodness tavern shouldn't have surprised Eleanor, but it did. Aside from the distinct lack of flat-screen televisions and neon signs -which she did not lament in the least - Herald's Rest could have been any number of small local bars she'd been to.

Except for the dwarf behind the counter.

And the elves.

And…

"Ah, so you must be Eleanor!"

Whatever it - he? - was, it was huge. It walked upright like a man, in fact, looked mostly like a man, if a giant one, but it had horns like a beast and its skin was a periwinkle sort of blue. But its - his - face was friendly, despite the eyepatch. "I've wanted to come down and visit," he said, as though they were old friends, "but the Inquisitor here tells me I wouldn't exactly fit in." He laughed a boisterous laugh and offered Eleanor a giant hand. She took it, absolutely baffled.

"Eleanor, this is the Iron Bull."

"P-pleased to meet you," Eleanor sputtered. She oofed softly as the large man-creature slapped her on the back.

"I hear you've been taking care of some of our people. Let me buy you a drink. Shit, let me buy everyone a drink. Bar keep!" the beast howled and stalked away, immediately distracted by his own mission.

"What…" Eleanor managed.

"Bull's a Qunari. They're normally not that… raucous, but Bull is our special exception. He fits in here."

Eleanor doubted the Qunari could fit in much of anywhere, but no one else in the inn seemed to even take notice of him - in fact, some even seemed bored with the giant's antics - so Eleanor made a concerted effort to suspend her disbelief. After all, this Iron Bull was buying her a drink. That was further than you got in a lot of bars in rural Indiana.

"Come on," said the Inquisitor, showing Eleanor to the bar. "Let's have a seat."

As soon as her butt hit the wood, the Qunari thunked a large stein in front of her and said, "Drink up!"

Eleanor, blinking furiously, wrapped her hand around the mug, and smiled a thanks. She felt a bit silly, sitting there in her borrowed clothes, hair still elaborately braided from the night before, only slightly out of place thanks to the sheer skill of the woman who'd artfully plaited it, but she took a quick look around and saw so many people wearing so many different things - some much more elaborate than her own garb, some mages yet in their full robes, which Eleanor didn't even have back yet - that she figured she must fit in about as well as the Iron Bull here, which was to say, pretty well after all. Even the Inquisitor herself sat beside her in what could only be described as winter weather finery; all browns and reds today, a vest and leather pants, a warm shirt and scarf, but all carefully crafted.

Well, alright then, she figured, might as well drink up. She brought the stein to her lips and took a languorous swig of the ale. It went down more smoothly than she at first would have expected - had no idea what to expect, truthfully - but as she swallowed the large gulp, her entire throat began to burn. Eleanor slammed down the mug and brought one hand to her face, the other to her chest as she futilely tried to stop herself from choking.

"Holy shit," she gasped as soon as she had enough air, though she coughed for a few seconds more.

"Ah!" Iron Bull said, something between encouragement and a growl, and he smacked her back again. "Good stuff, right?"

"Bull," chided the Inquisitor. "That's mean."

Iron Bull took the seat next to Eleanor, so that she was now flanked on either side. "Aw, come on, Boss," he said, clear over top of Eleanor. "Just trying to introduce her to the local flavor."

"It's - it's fine," Eleanor gasped. "It's good. That's, um, that's one you drink slow." Eleanor looked to her right and saw Evelyn agree, though Bull disagreed with a firm, "Bah!" draining his own drink in one go as though to show them how it was done.

"So," the Qunari began as the bartender brought him another round - the bartender was more than obviously used to this - "You and the Commander, eh?"

"Oh mother of god," Eleanor groaned.

"She doesn't mean it, Bull," Evelyn said, leaning in front of Eleanor. "Cassandra… was being Cassandra. Long story."

"The Seeker's got a temper worse than mine!" Bull laughed. "Now look, I don't know you, but what you've done for this Inquisition? It's good. Shit, you're more of an outsider here than me and it seems like you threw yourself head first into this. I commend your recklessness," he said with a loud chortle. "It's good, you and the Commander. He seems… Well, some people… Ah, fuck. I don't know what I'm saying. I don't have enough drink in me yet."

"I'm not certain…" said Evelyn slowly, but Iron Bull downed his ale with gusto. The Inquisitor only turned to Eleanor with a smile. "Well, I didn't have anything pressing to talk with you about, but if you'd like to go somewhere more private, there are tables upstairs," she offered.

"Nonsense!" insisted Bull. "Neither of you have even finished your drinks!"

Eleanor considered pointing out that they'd only been sitting for five minutes and that she and the Inquisitor were not the largest of people by any measure, but the Inquisitor simply lifted her drink to her mouth and drained it down.

"That's the spirit!" cheered Bull, and he shouted across the bar, "Another round for the Inquisitor!"

Eleanor drank slowly but steadily of her own drink, taking long sips instead of big gulps. Before she knew it, she too had an empty stein before her, and an incredibly full stomach. She swallowed hard, but a loud belch escaped before she could stop it, and Eleanor clapped her hands over her mouth, suddenly mortified. But Evelyn seemed not to notice, and Bull took Eleanor by the shoulder - his hand almost as wide as her back - and gave her a playful shake.

"Yeeees!"

Another drink was set before her and Eleanor wrapped her hand around it as though it were something to hold on to, to stabilize her. The irony was not lost on her even as she wrapped her fingers tighter.

"I wonder what Cullen and Cassandra decided to do instead?" she asked herself mostly, but figured the Inquisitor might have input; she felt bad for hurting the Seeker's feelings, even if Cassandra had hurt hers first, but the woman hadn't known that Eleanor was there, may have been using it more as a jab at Cullen than at Eleanor herself, and that was really none of Eleanor's business.

A voice that was not the Inquisitor's answered.

"Eh, they're probably off somewhere, bein' all serious, yeah? Too much serious for me, those two. Hello, Shiny," a ponderously tiny elfin woman with crooked blonde hair and garish clothes came up from behind Evelyn and reached up to wrap her arms around the Inquisitor's shoulders, pressing her face against Evelyn's neck.

"Hello, Sera," said Evelyn with a little purr. "Sera, this is Eleanor. Eleanor, Sera."

"Hey, I know you," said Sera, as she pulled away from the Inquisitor, hands on hips. "Or about you, at least. You're the one with the Blight! Or the one with the land with the Blight. Sorry about that, yeah? Not that I had anything to do with it, personally, like." She laughed in a way that reminded Eleanor of bubbles escaping from the bottom of a glass of water. "Ah, sorry. That's as maybe not funny. Anyway, nice to meet you," said the elven woman in one rush of words.

"You look like you're heading out," said Evelyn, swiveling away from the bar to look Sera in the eyes. The blonde woman had a bow on her back and sturdy boots on her feet.

"Yeah, never a dull moment for the frigging friends of Red Jenny," said Sera, seeming a bit displeased. "Not that I mind gettin' one over on some stuck-up nobles, you know me, Shiny, but Orlais can shove it right about now. Gettin' real sick of this," and she hoisted her bow a little more steadily onto her shoulders.

"Well, be safe," Evelyn said, reaching out to take the elven woman's slender hand.

"Me? Safe? Never," she chuckled, and brought the Inquisitor's hands to her lips, giving her knuckles a little kiss before she waved and offered, "Bye-bye!"

Evelyn looked at Eleanor and blushed.

"She's cute," Eleanor said honestly, with a wildly crooked smile.

"Yeah… Yeah, she is."

Eleanor smiled and reached into her pocket for her cell phone, like she would anytime she was at the bar by herself, or with friends, before she realized these were not her pockets and she did not have her cell phone. Would it even work here? Of course there would be no reception, certainly no WiFi - even the word WiFi seemed wrong to her now - but would it turn on? If she brought it here, fully charged, brought anything here that ran on batteries, electric power, would it work at all? Or would the strangeness of this place render all of these devices useless? Was this a more primitive place or a more advanced one? They didn't have computers, but did they need them? Thedas seemed to lack for nothing. And had all of the same problems her own home had.

Eleanor licked her lips. "Can I ask you something, Inquisitor? I apologize in advance if you don't want answer."

Evelyn nodded her assent. "Of course, Eleanor."

"You and Sera - is all of Thedas so ...tolerant?" It came out sounding all wrong, like maybe Eleanor wasn't, like maybe Eleanor had a problem with it, but the pink color in her cheeks as she stammered to correct herself made Evelyn laugh.

"I'm to understand you don't mean because she's an elf."

"That obvious?"

"It's okay. But let me ask you first - what about your home?"

Eleanor's heart sunk. "It… could be worse. It's better. Better than it's ever been. But far from perfect."

Evelyn took a long drink and nodded. "Here too. Ferelden might be the best place. Orlesians really only raise a fuss when it affects a political marriage, and only even then when it's a secret made public. The Free Marches," she only shrugged. "Kirkwall's a big city. Everyone's weird in one way or another in a big city. And I'm sure Dorian's told you about Tevinter."

"N-no…" Eleanor stammered, suddenly feeling so far removed from the man who had shared her home for so many months.

Evelyn shook her head, indicating that Eleanor had nothing to be embarrassed about. "Dorian was ostracised by - alright, maybe he ostracised himself from, but I can't say I blame him - his family because he refused to marry a woman just to have children and continue his family's line. Any other relationship he would have had outside of his marriage with whatever gender would have been fine, but if there's one thing that Pavus has got, it's principles."

"Now that I do know," she said with a chuckle and turned to her own drink.

"But Dorian and Bull… now I'm not one to judge, but I don't get that."

Eleanor sputtered. Dorian and Bull? But the Inquisitor continued without giving Eleanor time to speak.

"Honestly, people do have more problem with the fact that Sera is an elf. Briala too. Oh -" she amended, seeing the confusion on Eleanor's face. "Briala was Empress Celene's mistress before Celene was killed. Briala is Dalish - an elf."

"And… Briala now rules?"

Evelyn let her head droop deeply. "It's… complicated."

Eleanor could sense that the topic was giving the Inquisitor some grief, so she dropped it.

Bull had wandered away and was sitting on a chair with a group of people who were all laughing and singing around him, drunk as you please. It looked like fun, and she was sure that Bull would have allowed her not only to join in, but would have then forced her to have a drink for each person who shook her hand. Dorian and Bull, huh? But Eleanor was feeling more like Evelyn looked. She was tired. She was confused. And, unlike Evelyn, she was far away from home.

Home.

She missed it.

She thought about Evelyn and Sera, how from a two minute conversation she could see how much each woman loved the other, and suddenly she felt incredibly alone in this friendly, boisterous place. Eleanor hadn't really expected Cullen to follow after Evelyn's rebuke of Cassandra - he'd probably been on his way to do something else when the Seeker had stopped him. But now she missed him fiercely. How could that be, after only knowing him for months, only being with him for little more than a week? They hadn't even talked about what was between them - did they have to? He had said a lot by telling the Inquisitor that Eleanor would be staying in his quarters, sharing his bed, but what did he mean for this to be? Something small while he was distracted by his duty on the other side of the Fade? Or would he mean for it to continue if and when the Blight was ended? Would asking be too forward? Would the commander even be able to give her answers? If he had asked her those same things, she would not be able to. She was going with her gut, acting on her feelings. She was holding nothing back.

Eleanor decided that if those were the only things that Cullen could give her in return, then she at least wanted to know that much.

She looked down into her drink, and then brought it to her mouth, allowing it to swallow her as she swallowed it whole.


	49. The Odds of You Being Able

Some time later, Eleanor had excused herself from Evelyn and went back to Cullen's quarters, her quarters, and found the man there, both hands pulling at his straw-blond hair, gloves cast aside on the corner of his desk.

"Hey, you," she said softly, hands stuffed into her pockets against the chilly air from whence she had come.

"El," he said softly, letting his arms relax. "There you are."

"Here I am," she said with a smile, and went around the desk, grasping him behind the neck and pulling him into a fierce kiss. The man was startled at first, but soon relented and took her small body into his large hands and held her tightly until she made the first move to let go.

"What was that for?" he said, voice so low and smooth it was certainly not an objection, barely even a question.

Eleanor took a small step back, bolstered by a bit of drink, and she began to speak, her open palms still on Cullen's scruffy neck. "Alright," she said, "I've been thinking - I've got to know. I'm not saying I have any long term plans for this… for us…" now she broke away and crossed her arms in front of herself. "I'm not even sure neither you nor I are in a position to really make a decision like that - that's not the point," she added hastily, dropping her arms limply at her sides. "I guess what I'm saying is that if this… went on for… for some time… I don't think I would mind that." She put one hand behind her head on her tight braid and looked now at the floor. "Look. Cullen," she fought for words and forced them out even as she struggled for each one. "I'm asking, where do you see - what do you -"

Cullen stopped her, quickly grasping both of her hands in his. "Eleanor, I love you." His dark eyes fixed hard on her deep blue ones. "Maybe I shouldn't - or shouldn't say it. I know it's soon. But I do. I love you. I don't know what's going to happen. I don't think anyone knows much of anything at this point. Maybe something big is about to happen between your world and mine. Or maybe this path between them has always been there, and by some strange twist of fate only we have stumbled through it. Perhaps it doesn't even matter. But I know as long as I'm with you, on this side of the rift or the other, I think… I know I'd like to be with you."

Eleanor couldn't help but blush, even as she said, "Cullen."

"Hm?"

"That is the corniest fucking thing you've ever said. You know that, right?"

"I…" Cullen paused. "I do, yes."

"But let me guess," she said, slipping her hands up to his elbows. "You mean every word."

"Absolutely," he bowed his head to be closer to her.

"Good," she said, and kissed him once again, slower this time.

"So, then," he said when he caught his breath, "am I to understand that there is reciprocity here?"

"Big time." She ran her hands up from his elbows to his back, cradling his shoulder blades as best as she could through his heavy garments, using the tightening of her own fingers to pull herself closer to him.

Cullen swallowed and said, "I, uh, can finish this report later. Tomorrow."

"That's incredibly appealing," Eleanor said, pressing her cheek against his to whisper in his ear, "but you know what's not?"

"What?" he said quietly.

"That ladder."

Cullen leaned back and cocked an eyebrow at her. "You don't think?"

She shook her head in a small arc with a wide smile.

In one swift motion, Cullen swept her up into his left arm, bracing her against his hip as he walked across the room and climbed the first few rungs of the ladder one-handed, still clutching her to his side.

"How about now?"

* * *

"Commander Cullen!"

Eleanor jerked away, clutching the blankets to her bare body in the cold room. The fire must have gone out during the night.

The night. There was some sun coming in the tower's high window, but not a lot. It was barely day.

Eleanor rolled over and saw Cullen's eyes blink open in the darkness. "Don't people ever get a full night's sleep around you?" she asked softly.

He yawned deeply. "It's rare."

"Nnf," Eleanor mumbled, grabbing the blankets and rolling over. "She wants you, not me," she said into the pillow and pulled flannel fabric over her head.

"Commander Cullen! Lady Eleanor!"

"Sounds like she wants us both," Cullen mumbled, sitting up and stretching out over his legs. He gave a little groan, a sign of his age, and put his feet on the cold wooden floor.

"I didn't sign up for this," Eleanor muttered.

Cullen stood up and reached for clothes. "I promise you that one day we will not be woken up like this."

"Commander Cullen! Lady Eleanor!"

"We're coming, Harding!" Cullen shouted. "Just give us a blasted minute," he said, hopping into his undergarments.

"At the moment," said Eleanor, rising from bed, and stretching, "the odds of you being able to keep that promise seem very thin."

* * *

They arrived at the War Room still draped a bit over one another, not yet ready to shake off the night's shared warmth, a measure to fight off more than one kind of cold. But when Cullen saw the reason that Scout Harding had sent for them in the chilly late autumn dawn, he straightened up, reached out a hand.

"Stroud. I didn't expect to see you here."

"Commander. The Grey Wardens send their regards."

Eleanor stood back a bit, nearer the door than the two men, and shivered gently.

"It's not that I'm unhappy to see you, Stroud, but I didn't expect to see you so soon. We only arrived ourselves not long ago."

"A happy coincidence. Or perhaps not so happy," the Warden rescinded. He had an accent like Leliana's, and it was entirely pleasant for her to hang back and listen to. "I was already on my way after hearing of your own expedition into the ravine - which, as I now understand, was connected to the Deep Roads?"

"You've read the report?"

Eleanor yawned, and in her deep inhalation, the words the commander and Warden were saying were lost. The heavy door swung open and the Inquisitor entered, giving Eleanor a knowing nod and handing her a mug of something warm and steaming. It smelled like cinnamon and before the two woman had even said hello, they were standing shoulder to shoulder along the wall, so sleepy their lolling heads almost touched.

Holding the warm cup under her chin, Eleanor asked, "I know this isn't my place, but shouldn't you like, be…" she nodded her head toward the two men, Cullen pointing furiously at the map and Stroud nodding, referring to Cullen's on report in his hands.

Evelyn shook her head. "I trust the commander. He knows far more about this than me. I've been at this for seven? eight? years. Cullen's done this his whole life. He joined the Templar Order at thirteen - which, actually, is kind of old for a recruit - but that means he's been doing this for something like twenty-five years. Two decades of real, applicable experience as a leader. Me, I was just some shitty upstart mage from a noble family. He gave a damn from day one." She sipped the hot liquid in her cup, adjusted her shoulders against the wall. "And if he says anything really stupid I'll just zap him with a bolt of lightning."

"He'd hate that," Eleanor said with a snicker.

"Boy, wouldn't he just."

The Inquisitor and the liaison looked at each other for a long, hard moment, and then nearly doubled over with laughter.


	50. In Fact, I Encourage It

Before noon, there was an argument.

"We need to seal off that tunnel!" Cassandra insisted. "However you got to Thedas from there - it shouldn't be. If the darkspawn can use that -"

"How do we know it hasn't always been there, Seeker? How do we know that the Blight didn't start here and spread that way, instead of across the Fade?" Cullen argued.

"The Blight did not start here," the Seeker said. "We would have seen signs long ago. The Archdemon was not spotted in our skies, after all."

Cullen gave a long, deep sigh. "Cassandra. Please. I don't want to argue this with you. I want to end the Blight. Not have drawn-out discussions about land routes between two worlds."

"Commander, you cannot be that dense," Cassandra slammed her hands down on the table. "Even if the Blight did originate here to take root only on the other side of the Fade, we need to ensure that that never happens again - in either direction!"

Pinching the bridge of his nose hard, Cullen said softly, "And don't you think it would behoove us to have a link between the land where the Blight originated and the the land upon which we're fighting it? The fact that we have to cross the Breach so often -"

"It will only allow the Blight to spread!"

Eleanor had gracelessly sat down in the corner, and was now resting her head firmly in her hands. Stroud had for the most part only listened, trying to get a sense of what these caves contained, what his Wardens could expect to face. But even he now looked exasperated. Others had been in and out throughout the day, but now only Stroud and Cullen, Cassandra and the Inquisitor, and Eleanor herself remained. Leliana - Divine Victoria - had been called away, and even Josephine had found herself inclined to do other things. It didn't matter; she had only been keeping minutes and there were no minutes to keep. Ten in the morning to noon, Eleanor thought, the commander and Seeker bicker. Noon, broke for lunch. One in the afternoon, more bickering.

It wasn't that late in the day yet, but if this continued, Eleanor considered leaving for lunch and not returning. Part of her felt that she should be there to support Cullen, to speak up for her home. The other, much larger part, wanted to go back to bed. To ask the Inquisitor to please bring her another one of those warm spiced drinks, but this time fill it halfway with whatever swill Bull had given her the night before. If she were drunk, maybe she would enjoy this. If she were drunk, maybe she would have the gumption to just get up and walk out. Hell, Dorian hadn't even bothered to show. Maybe he was still snuggled up with the Qunari, the lucky bastard.

Evelyn was still on her feet, but barely. She was on the other side of the room, near the windows, looking longingly out onto the mountains below, the valleys. Eleanor could feel how badly the woman wanted to be anywhere but here, but this was, despite its anguishing nature, important. That was why Eleanor had stayed, after all.

"Commander Cullen, listen to me! If we block off the bridge between Thedas and the other side" - that was what they all kept calling it, The Other Side - "we will confine the Blight to one world instead of two! Dorian should be here, he should be hearing this. We have mages who can possibly sever this connection!"

"But Cassandra, if the connection has been there for ages, who knows what repercussions breaking the link will have! What if it is a link in a chain? What if it is meant to exist? Perhaps we should sever it, but not before it is studied! Not before we know what we're dealing with!"

"I never would have thought," muttered Cassandra, shaking her head, "that you, of all people, Commander, would be in favor of not going in with force. For our world's safety. For hers," and she pointed demonstratively at Eleanor, as though Cullen couldn't have discerned her meaning without a visual clue.

"I don't know what you have heard, Cassandra," he spat her name with venom, "but contrary to your beliefs, I don't think that we should go into this blindfolded! We don't even know what this link is. If force is required, I will use it! But right now we don't have enough information!"

"We have all the information we need," Cassandra insisted. "Either the Blight spread from here to the other side, or the darkspawn on the other side can get to here from there, or both! If that is not enough information for you, Commander -"

"Shut up!" Eleanor was on her feet, and shouting. "Shut up, shut up, shut up!" she pressed her hands against her temples. "For Chrissakes, both of you," she quieted down a bit now. "You're achieving nothing. Fucking nothing. I don't care if you don't agree but you've been doing this for hours. My fucking home could be burning and you're arguing about something completely fucking irrelevant. And you're not even making any headway."

They stared at her in stunned silence for a moment, and across the room the Inquisitor almost seemed to smile. Both Cullen and Cassandra opened their mouths, either to rebuke her or support her, but she cut them off with a slash of her hand. She had dug her hole this deep; she might as well keep digging.

"No. No, listen to me. Either you decide something - I almost don't care what at this point - or you move the fuck on and come back to this later. But I can't just stay here while you bicker. I need to go home. That's my fucking job, isn't it? Liaison? I can't do that if I'm stuck here while you decide to cut this place off from me." Her face softened and she clenched her fists. "Please." Eleanor reached up and squeezed her forehead along her hairline. Her braids, now two days old, felt uncomfortably tight all of a sudden. She repeated, "Please." And then, "Sorry."

The Inquisitor pulled herself away from the window and said over top of the table, "Don't be sorry. It had to be said. I'm glad you were the one to say it." Evelyn rounded the edge of the table and went to Eleanor's side. "Come. Let's take a walk. Stroud, I assume you have enough information to know what you will need. If you don't, I encourage you to ply more information from these two," she waved her hand at Cullen and Cassandra, "with hot pokers until they give it to you. In fact, I encourage it even if you have everything you need."

"Of course, Inquisitor," the serious of the Grey Warden's words belied their humor.

"El - Ellie," Cullen called out to her, but Evelyn stopped him.

"Commander, you'll have your chance." Evelyn offered her arm to Eleanor and she took it, and the two mages walked arm in arm from the War Room .

* * *

"I feel a bit bad about this, you know." Eleanor was stretched out on a luxurious chaise lounge in the Inquisitor's own quarters. She held a glass of wine in one hand, had the other draped over a railing. "But just a bit."

Evelyn was sitting on her own desk, leaning back and propped up on one hand. holding her own wine with the other. "Don't. The one thing that I have learned, running this Inquisition - so much as it can be run and so much as I am running it - is that these frankly powerful adults are prone to nothing more than bickering like children. So I have learned to butt my nose in where it doesn't belong, because it either gets them caught in the act, or gets them to make a decision. In very rare circumstances it falls to me to make a choice but more often than not, you can tell which way they were leaning long before I ever stepped in."

Eleanor sipped her wine, almost patted herself down for a cigarette before remembering she had accidentally relinquished them, along with her unused gun and several nutrition bars, when she had stripped off her bloody robes and scrubbed the much of the ravine, the Deep Roads from her skin. "I just wish…"

"What do you wish, Eleanor?" asked the Inquisitor, sliding down from her perch and coming to rest on the couch alongside the other woman, her feet near Eleanor's head. "What would you do about this link?"

Eleanor sat up a bit to meet the red haired woman's bright eyes. "What would I do? I… don't know that my opinion is worth anything."

"I could not disagree more. We're talking about a connection between this place and a place that you call home, from which you are our only representative. I think you're opinion means as much as anyone at that table downstairs, as much as mine, if not more. And even if that were not the fact of the matter, I believe that everyone's opinion counts for something." Evelyn reached out and rested her hand on Eleanor's knee. "So tell me, Eleanor Redgrove. What would you have me do?"

Eleanor sat up, crossing her legs on the wide sofa. "Inqu - Evelyn. It seems like too much of a coincidence. Look at us. You and I. We're sitting here, speaking. You and I, from how far apart, can understand each other. We're both human. We're both mages, which is strange by itself. As far as I know, this - this magic woke up in me either because of the Breach or because of the link. Which it was doesn't matter. But if there's a piece of that in me, who knows how many others from my home have that? Who knows what other connections our worlds share? That link… the fact that the Breach connected us so easily… I think that link has been there for a long time. Much longer than Cassandra realizes, certainly, maybe even longer than Cullen thinks." She leaned forward conspiratorially. "Evelyn, I think maybe that link has always been there. Maybe it's just been hidden for a very long time."

A wry smile split the Inquisitor's face. "You know, Varric said almost the same thing. And I believe him."


	51. I Think We'd Best Be Off

They went back to the War Room, and burst through the doors. "We're not severing the link." It was Eleanor who spoke, and she walked with powerful strides, encouraged by the Inquisitor and the fact that she was not the only one who had expressed her own concerns.

"And just what gives you the right -" began the Seeker.

"I do," Evelyn spoke firmly from just a few steps behind Eleanor. "You two," she pointed to Eleanor and Cullen, "will be going back through the Breach tomorrow morning. You will have dozen troops with you, to be rotated weekly, and a full platoon will join you when Stroud's Wardens begin their descent into the Deep Roads from this side, however long that takes."

"From this side?" said Cassandra. It was not argumentative now, only confused.

"Yes. Cassandra, you will join them, and take as many Inquisitor soldiers as we can spare. Orlais be damned. We will aid Briala with spies and politics but we cannot fight her wars for her, not right now.

"The description of the cliff face and the proximity of the road to it should make the cave you exited relatively easy to find again. You will enter from Thedas and travel to Indiana not through the Breach but through the Deep Roads. The Grey Wardens will focus on the Archdemon, of course; they will attempt to kill it in the Deep Roads if at all possible. Cullen's platoon will be waiting at the mouth of the ravine and will take out the darkspawn before they can spread."

"You make it sound so easy, Inquisitor," said Stroud. "We will need more Wardens than we have had in centuries."

"Easy is the one thing this will not be. You have as much time as you need to gather your Wardens, Stroud. But do keep in mind that we are fighting for this woman's home, a home which is more deeply connected to Thedas than we could have ever known."

He nodded reverently.

"Any objections?"

"I…" answered Cassandra slowly. "You know my objection, Inquisitor. But your word is my command."

Evelyn's face softened, and she went to the Seeker, clapped a hand to the tall woman's arm. "Thank you, Cassandra. Please know I understand your concerns."

"Yes, Inquisitor." And Eleanor almost thought she saw Cassandra's hard shell slip slightly.

"Cullen?"

"Inquisitor," he said, standing straight, clasping his hands behind back.

"Be good to this one." She smiled at Eleanor. "She reminds me a lot of myself."

* * *

Dorian was summoned from Iron Bull's chambers. So it was true. The thought of it, of those two entirely dissimilar characters together made her smile. Laugh, even. Dorian didn't seem to mind. He didn't seem to mind any criticism that was not straight-up offense. He played it off like a sad puppy but Eleanor could tell that he was glad that she accepted him for what he was, all prodding aside. Varric was already ready in the keep's main all, and they went out to the far courtyard, near the stables, to where the Inquisitor had summoned them. A Breach very much like the one that was not far from Eleanor's home lingered in the air above them, open but inactive.

Cullen stood with his arm around Eleanor, dressed once again in her blue robes, all of her accoutrements at her sides and on her back. Everything had been tidily washed, and felt softer and cleaner than when she had first tried it on, though it may simply have been that she couldn't remember what it felt like to be in her own robes and clean. She only remembered being in them, in the Deep Roads, for what felt like an eternity; sweaty, claustrophobic, covered in blood. She liked the clean feeling, like the clean, cold air here, despite the season. Thedas was a nice place. It was a shallow thought and she knew it, a judgement above all else. It was a world different from her own and "nice" or "not nice" were meaningless, but from what she had seen - which was not much - she liked it. She like the Inquisitor. She liked everyone. Even Cassandra, despite the woman's stern nature. She was strong, and stood up for what she believed in. Eleanor didn't think she was a truly hurtful person, just that she had been doing this for a very long time and that she was frustrated. Eleanor might be wrong, but something in the scarred woman's eyes told her she wasn't. Eleanor hoped she had an opportunity to find out.

The Inquisitor greeted them with a wave.

"Ready to head back?"

She and Cullen nodded, Dorian and Varric gave small verbal assents.

"Alright. We'll keep in touch as much as we can. Hopefully the Wardens won't take too long to assemble, but I can't make any promises. You know that much already." Evelyn flexed her hands. "Your own troops will meet you there as soon as they're ready. Look for them later today. Early tomorrow at the very worst. If we had had more notice I would just send them along with you, but…" she showed them the palms of her hands as though to say, "what can you do." And what could you do, indeed. The Inquisitor was fighting a war on three fronts, now - Orlais, for Briala; Ferelden and all of Thedas with the Deep Roads that might bring them their own Blight; and Eleanor's own home, with its existing trouble. Eleanor was constantly surprised, even for the short duration that she had know the Inquisitor, that Evelyn was not perpetually on the verge of losing it. Or that she had not already lost it. Eight years of this. Certainly this was the worst, except, from what Eleanor had heard, the first year or so of the woman wearing the title of Inquisitor. But Evelyn remained calm, remained in good humor. Eleanor admired that.

She tightened the arm around Cullen's waist, giving the commander, her commander, a gentle squeeze. "Okay, then, Inquisitor. I think we'd best be off."

"Too true," Evelyn agreed. "Promise me this won't be the last time we see each other?"

Eleanor smiled and gave the red-haired woman a definitive nod. She promised.

And then the sky seemed to open above them and swallowed the four up, and then they were gone.

* * *

It was the smell she noticed first: cold, but not like Thedas, not like the snow. Cold like rain and heavy clouds, cold like heavy sweaters and hot coffee. Then the world seemed to take shape around her and she could see the field, still dead, covered in frozen droplets of dew or possibly the lingering moisture from an early-morning storm. The air cut into her when the wind blew and she hugged her cloak tighter. The sky above was dark and thick with clouds, so different from the blue sky they had looked upon only moments before. And in the distance was the house. The barn. The shed. Home.

It all looked so quiet, so lonely, having just come from such a bustling place, so small and empty. But it was home. It was here.

Eleanor had half believed that, after having seen what she had in the Deep Roads, she would come back to a smoldering ruin. That the fields would not be fallow but burned. That the beehives, the barn, would have been smashed to timber. But here it all was still.

She almost dropped to her knees, almost hiked up her robes and ran. Instead, she uttered a small "yes" under her breath and clapped her hands together, and began a slow trudge over the field, the lawn, to home.

As soon as she opened the door, Swiffer flung herself at the four pairs of legs on the porch, winding between Eleanor and Cullen, pawing viciously at Dorian, and even showing Varric affection, something she had only begun to do in the weeks previous. The dwarf reached down to pat the cat on the head, and said to her, "I bet you thought the world had ended."

"To be fair, it's on it's way," Dorian mused.

Cullen shot the mage a surly glance.

"Come on, you lot. Let's get something to eat. And something else to wear. I don't know about you but I'm not changing out of pajamas for days."

* * *

 _Author's Note:_ Just a quick shout-out to debatable-cerealkiller and Soprano Zone for their really sweet reviews (and as always to starryskyondragon'sback). You guys are amazing. Also, some little news in the profile.


	52. A Bridge between Worlds

Eleanor did as she said, putting on sweatpants and an over-sized t-shirt which might have been one of Cullen's or might not have; it had become hard to tell in the days before they left, and then went around the house, plugging things back in and charging phones and tablets that had gone neglected. She put on coffee and and started a stew in the slow-cooker. She went into the basement to make sure the furnace filter was in good enough repair and turned it on, and as she was coming back up the basement steps, she ran into Cullen, foisting a laundry basket on his hip. There eyes met and something clicked in Eleanor's mind.

"How do you do this?" she asked him.

"Oh, this one's a lighter load, actually, just a few -"

She pursed her lips and rolled her eyes.

"What is it?" he asked, adjusting the basket, and she reached out to take the basket from him, depositing it on a lower step before going on.

She leaned against the railing and said, "How can you go from that," she jabbed her thumb behind herself, "that world, that place, fighting and commanding and shouting about big, awful, important things to doing our laundry?"

He gave her a thin smile, but it was honest all the same. He sat down on the top step so that they were now eye level and said, "It's not like I've done this before, El. I suppose I'm just taking it moment by moment. Yesterday I had to shout. Today I have to wait, and I also have to wash clothes. And," he added, coyly, "it's not terrible that it's our laundry," putting extra emphasis on the pronoun. Eleanor only rolled her eyes. "Oh, give me some credit; I'm trying," he said, mocking exasperation. But he slapped his hands down on his thighs gently and stood once more. "I don't know, Ellie. I was sent her under the impression that I didn't have a choice. I don't mean that as a negative thing; this is what I came here to do. Er, not… this," and he made a back and forth motion between them with his hands, then cleared his throat.

"Just an added bonus?" she said with a wink.

"Let's call it," he agreed. "In any case, this is what I signed up for, in one way or another. It's not that I never stopped to question it; if I hadn't I'd still be a templar." He stuck his hands in his pockets. "What about you?"

"What about me what?"

Cullen shrugged.

"This can't have been easy on you. Especially not with your, ah, yes. You've had to change a lot, going from farming and working and solitude and silence, to, well, shouting about big, awful, important things? I've nothing against a quiet life, and it seems you don't either. This has to have been much harder on you."

It was the sentiment that Leliana had expressed to her only days ago, but hearing it from Cullen gave Eleanor a warm sort of confirmation. She hadn't needed to hear it, but that didn't mean it wasn't nice to know that he was aware of what was happening.

"Hey, it hasn't been too bad. I've had help."

"And I'll continue to help however I can."

Eleanor pointed toward the bottom of the stairs. "Washer's that way. I'm gonna go get the truck."

* * *

The first snow fell on the Monday before Thanksgiving.

Cullen and Eleanor woke up slowly; there were no sounds to disturb them. In the soft whiteness that had blanketed the farm, all the normal sounds of the world seemed to be absorbed. Fat flakes still fell from the sky and showed no sign of stopping. Cullen grabbed his pillow and adjusted it under his shoulders, sitting up just enough for Eleanor to prop her own self up on his chest. She snuggled against his skin, one arm thrown across his body, covers pulled up to her chin. Her hair blanketed his right arm, and he pushed the rich, brown locks away from her eyes as she drifted in and out of waking, her mind in no hurry to rise, her body even less. Cullen reached out to the nightstand for his pack of smokes, slipping one out of the pack with a gentle shake. He pursed the cigarette between his lips and replaced the pack in his hand with a lighter. Igniting it, he drew the hot, acrid smoke into his lungs, holding the cigarette in his mouth as he used his free hand to find the one that Eleanor had flung across his body. He twisted her unresisting fingers in his, running his thumb over the flesh of her knuckles, the bones in her hand. He pulled his hand away from hers only to flick the ash from the end of his cigarette, finding it again as soon as his fingers were free.

"Hey, El? You awake?" he asked quietly, around the filter in his mouth.

"Nn," she said softly, pressing her cheek a little harder against the flesh of his chest.

He carefully freed his trapped right arm and wrapped it around her shoulder, beneath the heavy comforter. He gave the muscle there a little squeeze and he could feel her smile against his body. A moment or so passed and he felt her breathing slow once more, felt her body subconsciously wiggle a few inches deeper under the comforter seeing its extra warmth.

Cullen took the last long drag from his now-spent cigarette and exhaled a blue-grey cloud.

"I love you," he said, though he knew, or perhaps because he knew, she was asleep.

* * *

Dorian sat at the dining room table, a wide piece of parchment spread out before him, thumbing through several books he had brought from Skyhold with the most recent rotation. He had also requested a number of other texts, scrolls he'd only heard rumors of, codices he wasn't sure still existed if indeed they'd ever been anything more than myth, and Leliana said she would put her agents on it, that she would do her best, but he was only even hoping such things existed, so he was currently making do with what he had in front of him.

Varric had shunned parchment and had instead accepted from Eleanor several spiral-bound notebooks and a whole sleeve of ballpoint pens, and he had set himself to work filling the lined white paper, scratching away intently with the black Bics, every now and again pausing to bring the end of the pen to his lips, tap his cheek gently with the round end of the instrument, before setting back to work.

Dorian eyed him cautiously, watching Varric scribble intently as Dorian slowly, painstakingly filled his parchment with notes and designs.

After more than an hour of this, Varric crossed his arms, wiggling the pen between his fingers. "Alright, Sparkler. Talk."

"Just what are you working on?" the mage spat, nearly throwing his quill down on the table.

"Why, this, of course," the dwarf raised his hands and made a circle in the air to indicate some sort of entirety. "Might just be my best story yet."

"Indeed," said Dorian, giving only the tiniest twitch of his eyebrow, lips flat and level.

"Of course! No one will believe this - a Blight spreading through a tear in the Veil left over from Corypheus! A bridge between worlds! A path through the blasted Deep Roads from Thedas to - to here! The commander, falling for a mage, who never even knew she was a mage! Even I can't make this shit up." He leaned back, seeming self-satisfied, as though the fact that reality - realities - were stranger than fiction was affirming to him in some way.

"You certainly cannot," agreed Dorian, though he seemed far less enthused about it than Varric.

"How about you, Sparkler? Whatcha got there?"

He sighed, long and frustrated. "A bridge between worlds," he answered.

"You don't say."

"Oh, but I do," he said glumly, and flicked back and forth between a few pages. "There have always been some theories about… other worlds, pathways, different threads in the fabric of reality." He put up his hands so that all of his fingers were splayed wide, pointing the tips of his fingers all to the right. "Imagine," he said, before looking up at the sound of a floorboard creaking in the kitchen.

"Farm Girl," said Varric, swiveling his head around to spy into the adjoining room. "Maybe you should hear this."

"Hm?" she poured her cup of coffee from the carafe, still warm on the burner, and walked across the floor on socked feet.

"Alright," said Dorian, "imagine my fingers as parallel threads, never touching, never meeting. My index finger," he wiggled it a bit, "is one reality. Alone, by itself, there is no way for it to ever meet any of these other possible… let's call them worlds."

"Okay," said Eleanor, "like the Many Worlds theory."

"An excellent name," said Dorian, not realizing it wasn't a phrase of Eleanor's own invention. She didn't bother to interrupt him. "Yes, these 'many worlds' would have no way of ever meeting, except, we know, through the Fade." He brought his other hand to meet the first, this hand pointing toward the ceiling, making a grid with his fingers. "The Fade," he wiggled his vertically-oriented index finger, "must intersect our own world, we know that," he nodded toward Varric, "because we can physically go there, rarely, yes, but it can happen. The Somniari are capable of entering the Fade without the use of any lyrium. And because we know that mages, not just the dreamers but all mages, draw their power from the Fade, it stands to reason that the Fade must also intersect this world - notwithstanding our ability to travel between these places, for the moment - because of Eleanor here. You draw your power from there, you go there when you dream."

Eleanor nodded and tried to keep out of her mind the memories of her dreams, tugging at her consciousness. She slept more soundly now that she knew how to control her power, how to use it, but the dreams still bled through and sometimes she would wake up with Cullen awake next to her, fretting, smoothing her hair, wondering what, if anything, he could do. He had once mentioned something called a Harrowing, but seemed reluctant to bring it up again.

"We know all of these places are physical places: we're physically here right now. We've all physically been to Thedas. The Fade is different, not part of the first sort of reality, because it can be entered incorporeally as well, but it is possible, as some of us know first hand, to enter the Fade, body and mind."

Varric looked exhausted at the mere mention of it, and Eleanor deduced that he must have been included in the group of "some of us." It did not seem like the dwarf had enjoyed his experience.

"That's great, Sparkler, but these are all things that we know, unbelievable though they might seem. These are all things we've done."

"Yes, but, just because we've done them doesn't mean we can explain them. Which brings me to the ravine. The Deep Roads." He let his hands fall down to the parchment, where he had been working on what looked like a combination of maths and descriptions of figures that he had drawn, all of it in a language incomprehensible to Eleanor. "The Fade has been serving us as a path between worlds. And indeed, it is some sort of 'other' world, separate and yet joined to both of our 'real' worlds. But if all of these places are 'real' places, places that a real body can physically inhabit, I think… I think that there's no reason why we should need to use the Fade to travel between this world and Thedas."

"Isn't… that what happened?" Eleanor asked, holding her coffee cup up just under her chin as she leaned against the dining room wall.

"Well, yes, but it didn't necessarily have to be." He took a deep breath, searching harder for words now. "There are also… between-places. The eluvian - enchanted mirrors," he offered to Eleanor, "transport a person, a physical body, from one place to another using a space that exists in a sort of… no place. The magic the elves used to construct those roads is very different from the magic you and I both use, Eleanor. I had thought at first, when you developed your power, that it might be something different still, but it seems to be the same sort of magic that I myself can access. I haven't felt any magic like the brand that the eluvians use here. But - do you - you both - recall that… well, there was a shimmering."

Eleanor bobbed her head. "Yeah, it seemed like right before the ravine became the Deep Roads."

"Exactly," he pointed at her.

"I noticed that," Varric agreed. "Things got a little hectic right around then, though."

Dorian picked up his pen, then set it back down again. "The Deep Roads didn't seem to progress any further beyond that point, in this direction."

Eleanor and Varric gave silent agreement.

"I think," he started, eyes searching the room while his mind searched for ways to put his thoughts into words. "I think that what we passed through, that shimmering, was the remnant of some kind of barrier. Perhaps natural - some sort of meeting point where the worlds touch, or… perhaps constructed."

"How -" Eleanor started, but Dorian begged her hold her thoughts.

"Think of strings in a fabric." He held up his hands again. "When they're new, they weave a square pattern. But when you get caught on a nail, the strings tug, pull together. The straight threads dip down, meet the thread next to them in a way which they were never meant to do."

"You think that's what happened here? Somewhere down in that ravine?" Varric asked.

"I do," Dorian answered. "Which poses us with a wholly different question."

"Which is?" Eleanor wondered.

Dorian cocked an eyebrow. "What was the nail?"


	53. Just a Lot to Think About

Dorian had promised to keep looking, keep requesting ever more obscure scrolls, and Eleanor got dressed in snow boots and jeans, a heavy sweater and a heavy coat. She tucked her messy hair under a beanie, and stuffing her hands in her pockets, she made for the door.

Cullen was coming back from the barn; he had been talking with the newest selection of troops to see what, if any, time scale he could construct for the future. The commander trudged through the deep snow, saw Eleanor coming down from the porch, and in the growing darkness of early evening, he gave her a wave. She waved back and met him halfway, kissing his cold lips when he reached out for her.

"Where are you off to?"

"Thinking about taking a walk. Dorian ran some theories by me and I wanted to try and clear my head."

"That bad, huh?" He brought a bare hand up to her cheek. Cullen was wearing a thin black jacket and Eleanor couldn't imagine how he kept from shivering in the biting air. His cheeks were pink, though; some indication that the man was not as impervious as he pretended to be.

"Not bad," she answered, leaning her face against his palm. "Just… a lot to think about."

"Would you like to be alone?" Cullen asked. Eleanor tugged her ear with her gloved fingers, tucked it back under the band of her beanie.

"I think so," she answered him, though his dark eyes and pink face had begun to sway her. There was too much on her mind, and Eleanor appreciated that he was aware enough of her to know that this was not the time to hold hands and wander through the snow. Though, she realized, that was something they hadn't done. Oh, well, there would be plenty of time for that. Spring wouldn't be around for a while -

But would there be plenty of time? What had Cullen learned?

What would happen once the Blight was ended?

Before it had seemed frivolous to even think of such a question. He had said the Blight could last years. Or dozens of years. But now, with one of his big hands on her cheek, the other reaching out to pull her in closer, was it so frivolous? So maybe the Blight lasted years. Maybe they were together for so long. What then? When there was no more struggle that would link their worlds? Would he go back to Thedas? Would… would she?

He kissed her tenderly on the forehead and his breath was warm against her skin as he said, "Go on, then. I'll put on tea."

If she had to, she might go back with him.

She just might.

* * *

Eleanor walked to the Breach, her heavy footsteps making long drags in the white snow, snow that looked blue in the winter gloaming. For the first time in a long time, there were no clouds overhead. The world seemed finally be satiated, and the sky was so deep and rich, dark dark blue fading to pumpkin orange along the rim of the horizon where the sun had not quite surrendered just yet. The stars peered down at her, familiar stars, and the moon was the thinnest sliver of a fingernail. Its bigness, its openness had never much frightened her, and she found the identifiable pinpricks of light almost comforting. This was her world, the world she knew, despite the larger, greener glint of light that hovered just overhead now.

Eleanor had never opened the Breach on her own; she didn't mean to. But she let her eyes slip closed and instead of looking at it, she felt for it, tried to sense the magic to allow the Breach to exist. They had told her that the Breaches were born of an elven artifact - the same that made the mysterious no-place roads Dorian had mentioned? Or just elves using the magic that she knew? When she found it, found its power in the dark places in her mind, it felt different from her own power, felt older, felt more complicated. But it should, by rights. Her magic was new. Newer certainly than the Breach, but newer than Dorian's, the first magic of its kind on this world. She thought of the letters from Leliana's other Earthly agents; she had begun to correspond with a few, just to keep abreast of the situation. Had darkspawn been spied elsewhere? In the midwest, yes, and her agents hunted them down and slew them in a much more subtle way than anyone staying on the farm could have hoped to. Outside of the area? No. It seemed the Blight had not spread, that the ravine had only its known opening here and in Ferelden, and if there were others, the darkspawn were not using them. And they would be known just as soon as there were enough Wardens to properly investigate the network of caves that they had spied on their expedition. Had the Archdemon been seen?

They didn't know.

It concerned her, concerned them all, because it would be hard to explain away, and because it reached so much further than the darkspawn could on foot. But somehow Leliana's people were on top of that as well. She got the sense that some of the people were in high places - she got the impression that her agents, and the people that worked with them, had known about this for many more years than Eleanor had, and Eleanor also suspected that these people were much higher up in society than she, or at least much better connected. But that was the point, wasn't it? Things like that made Eleanor realize that what she knew was not everything, was far from it, and in most moments, for it she was glad. But they had withheld nothing when she put her questions to them.

But none of them had mentioned being a mage. Was she truly the only one? Was that why she had been allowed - or, really, been made - to go down into the ravine? To come out on the other side and not immediately be ferreted back to Indiana? Why her? It was a question she asked herself at least once a day. Others here knew; that was not a secret and never had been. But, she reminded herself, here she was, standing under a Breach that was placed where it was because of the proximity to the ravine. To the Blight.

In truth, it didn't matter why her. It was her. It had to be someone, perhaps, and it was her.

She withdrew her mind from the Breach.

Eleanor looked off into the distance. She pretended she could see the ravine, though it was many miles too far off to actually be seen, even on Indiana's flat landscape. She imagined it as a gaping wound on the landscape, not unlike the scratches that had been dragged across Cullen's back. It was a wound in the earth. An infection that had taken hold in what had once only been a dry scar. She thought of Ferelden, a land that had seen five Blights, five of these illnesses for some obscene span of collective years. Was that her own home's new fate?

The darkness that hung the stars seemed to encompass her now, the last bit of orange having been completely bled from the sky. Night had taken hold around her, the only light coming from the Breach, the heavens, the warm, yellow lights in the windows of her home. They beckoned her as though they were the sun. And who was she to disobey?


	54. One Hell of a Woman

"The Grey Wardens are on their way to Ferelden."

The words left Cullen's lips like an omen. A prophecy.

It took Eleanor some time to respond; neither Dorian nor Varric said anything either. She couldn't imagine their reasons, but her own seemed small, shallow, unforgivable.

She wasn't ready.

It had been six months. More. The year had turned, now, the past one gone and ushered in by more cold, more snows that had trapped them in the house for some time now, brought out only to meet the messenger at the Breach who had been sent to tell them the news. Yes, it had been six months and then some since Eleanor learned of the Blight, learned of Thedas, and now the Wardens were coming to end it. It could be some time yet, Eleanor knew that. But it felt so sudden. It felt like this was just beginning. So she did not respond.

"How many soldiers?" Dorian asked.

Cullen unfolded the wrinkled parchment in his hands, read it again though he knew it word for word. "They can promise us two hundred."

"Two hundred Wardens!" Varric exclaimed.

"No. Two hundred soldiers. Twenty-five Wardens. And then as many of our own forces are able to leave Orlais. I'm hoping for another three hundred, but that might be more than we can spare. Anything might be more than we can spare."

"The Inquisitor promised us -"

Cullen cut Eleanor off. "The Inquisitor is a good woman, make no mistake. But she promises easily. When push comes to shove, she may not be able - willing, certainly, but perhaps not able - to reduce her forces by such a number. No one is fighting in Orlais, and it is because they are too afraid to engage us. Until the tension breaks, in whatever direction, it may not be possible for the Inquisitor's priorities to swing so wildly." Cullen wrung his head. "As much as I want to tell her to damn Orlais, the last time that happened, well…" He shook his head. "Even if she would listen to me - and she might - I will not have that blood on my hands."

Eleanor wanted to know how he felt about the blood that might be on those same hands should their efforts to stop the darkspawn army, once flushed out, fail. But of course it was pointless. She didn't know that it would fail. And she knew that if it did, if they did, Cullen would be among the dead. He did not wear his title as some commanders might, giving orders and staying out of the way of danger. He had been there when the darkspawn had approached the farm, and he would be there when they spilled out of the ravine like so many rats from a sinking ship. There would be no blood on his hands but his own.

An image flashed through Eleanor's mind of his blood on her hands. It was not a prophecy. It was a memory.

Or perhaps it was both.

She had to turn away from him then, put her hand to her mouth.

"El," Cullen said, and reached out his hand to the one of hers that dangled still at her side, but she pulled it away.

"I need some air," she said, and left the dining room for the porch.

It was cold outside, desperately cold, and it stole into her lungs. Eleanor wrapped one hand around her waist, the other remaining at her lips as she ground her teeth. She bowed her head, chin to her chest, and her hair fell around her like a dark hood. The snow was thick and glassy on the ground, broken only by Cullen's footprints from when he had left to meet the messenger, and returned quickly after with the note in his hands. Her eyes lingered hard on them, their shadows against the white drawing her focus. She kept her gaze hard on the ground to keep the tears from falling from her eyes. She had been crying too much. It made her feel small, and she knew that that was ridiculous. She was human, and she was scared. But showing strength made her feel stronger. Surely everyone was scared. It was not because she was a woman, or because this was all new to her. It was because she felt she had to be strong for the others. On the farm, she was in command; it was something she'd come into slowly, realized slowly. When she was at home, anyone, everyone, answered to her. If she stepped into danger, if she went back into the Deep Roads, the directive was Cullen's, without doubt. But here, they answered to her. So Eleanor pressed her hand hard to her mouth and focused on the long, dragging footprints in the snow.

"Eleanor," Cullen opened the screen door as he pulled shut the heavy one behind it. "Talk to me."

"We're not ready, Cullen," she said into her hand. She said "we're" but meant "I'm." If he knew, he let it go.

"We don't have much choice."

"I know."

He put one arm over her shoulder, not enough to move her, but enough to let her know that he was there. "It would be hard to be much more ready. With two hundred dedicated soldiers, plus whatever the Inquisition can give us, we've got more going for us than… well, than I had eight years ago. And twenty-five Wardens is more than they had during the Fifth Blight."

"How many did they have," she asked quietly, not taking her eyes from the snow, not taking her hand from her mouth.

He paused. "In the end? Two."

"And then one," Eleanor answered.

"Yes," Cullen said, "and then one."

"A while ago, you had said… You had said that the mage you knew, the mage who became the Warden, she ended the Blight."

"She… in so many words, yes."

"So who died?"

Cullen shifted his arm from her shoulders to turn and face her, gripping her elbows and dipping his head to catch her gaze. "We're not Grey Wardens, Eleanor. When we fight, it will be here, fighting an enemy we've already faced. We can take down darkspawn. Let the Wardens handle the Archdemon."

Eleanor let her hand fall from her mouth, crossing it around her middle to match her other arm. She found his gaze, her dark eyes watery. "But who died?"

Cullen pursed his lips thin. "Alistair. The future king, who never sat his throne. He… gave his life for the Warden."

"He loved her?"

"So they say."

"She must have been one hell of a woman."

"I've made a habit of being in the service of incredible women, it would seem." Then he looked up quickly, a thought crossing his mind. "And a mass-murdering bitch. But just the one."

Eleanor laughed.

It started as a small shake of her shoulders, despite Cullen's firm grip on her arms. Then her lips followed, turning slowly up. She closed her eyes, bowed her forehead against Cullen's chest and began to laugh, loud and hard, letting out all of the stress inside of her that had wanted to come out as tears in a fit of wild, rolling giggles instead.

"Oh, sure, but it wasn't funny at the time, believe me. It really wasn't," he insisted, but even he was grinning. "Let's go back inside. You'll catch your death."

Breathlessly, Eleanor answered, "Okay, Mom."

"Oh, don't start with me," he said, mock-firmly, and ushered her back into the house, Eleanor still laughing.

* * *

"This waiting is terrible," Dorian said, head in his hands at the breakfast table. He stared down into his milky coffee, elbows on either side of his empty plate.

"Sparkler, we've been doing nothing but waiting for months now," Varric pointed out, pushing a bit of egg around on his plate with a fork.

"Yes, but this is a special kind of terrible," Dorian insisted, not looking up.

"We know they're in the Deep Roads," said Cullen, eating his final piece of toast with gusto. Only he seemed to be reacting well to this latest piece of information. "Now we just have to keep our eyes peeled."

"Are all of our reinforcements going to arrive through the Breach at once?" Eleanor groaned. "Where am I going to put them? Jesus, what am I going to feed them? What if it takes them months to traverse the ravine?" her own plate sat mostly untouched, but she drank down cup after cup of coffee, got up, paced, smoked, sat down. Only then would she take a bite of bagel, a forkful of egg, and then she would have to get up again and do a lap.

"I'm sure they'll bring plenty of their own supplies, and tents to boot," Cullen reassured her. "As you've said, this isn't the Inquisition's first... r… radio?"

"Rodeo," Eleanor said, standing, pushing in her chair, taking a quick hit from her cigarette. "Not your first rodeo."

"That's the one," Cullen said, pointing at her enthusiastically. "Rodeo. That's with horses."

"Cows. ...And horses," she allowed.

"Farm Girl, sit down. You're making me nervous," Varric said, pushing his plate away.

Eleanor remained standing, but ceased tapping her fingers, her feet.

"El, please eat something," Cullen asked gently, even as he reached over her plate to steal her untouched toast.

Eleanor took the cigarette from her mouth and chewed on her lips, as though this alone would sustain her. Subconsciously, she began to tap her fingers again.

"I think she's going to burst," said Dorian, though he did it with sympathy. He looked as though he were about to deflate.

"It's gonna take them at least the time it took us to get through there, Eleanor," Varric said, using her name as a rare comforting gesture. "Probably longer. Maybe a lot longer. There's a lot more of them. And they'll be stopping to fight. On purpose," he added, as though the very concept were unheard of. "And your soldiers will be here soon to protect this place. You should relax, Farm Girl. Do it while you can."

Still tapping, she insisted, "I have to get ready."

"Get ready how?" Varric stood, and went to her, reaching up to put one reassuring hand on her elbow. "Sit around in your robes for a week? Come on. I'll help you with these dishes," he nodded back to the table, "and then, well, I say we have a drink."

"It's nine o'clock in the morning, dwarf," said Dorian.

"It's now or never," Varric answered.

Eleanor seemed to mull it over, then nodded, finishing her cigarette. "Alright. Alright. We can have drink," she allowed, "once the soldiers get her. Get settled in." She thought of the hundreds of tents that were about to pop up in the field around her home, and was suddenly very glad the place couldn't be seen from the highway. She wondered if the planes that flew overhead would notice, or care. Would they think she was having some kind of festival? Worst festival ever, she decided.

"Fair enough," said Varric, and began to pick up dishes to put them into the sink.

Cullen picked up her barely-nibbled bagel and rose, offering it to her by bringing it about an inch from her lips. "First, you eat."

She rolled her eyes and whipped her hand up to snatch the bagel, shoving half of it into her mouth in one bite. "There," she said, around a mouthful of carbs and cream cheese. "I ate."


	55. I Could Kiss You

"That's bullshit," Eleanor insisted, her pointer finger aimed at Varric, the rest of her digits clutching a can of beer. She sat sprawled out on the couch, one leg hanging off of the side, the other slung across Cullen's lap. He was holding her foot with one hand, giving it gentle rubs from time to time, clutching his own beer in the other, elbow propped on the arm of the couch. He had a smile on his face and was shaking his head.

"I'd believe him, El. I wasn't strictly there," Cullen allowed, "but I was… there."

Dorian sat in a soft armchair near the bookshelf, both legs thrown over the arm as he leaned a bit over the other. He was behind the couch, but Eleanor swiveled her head to look around when he said, "I wasn't there at all," he admitted, "but from what I have seen, well, I've been exposed to a uniquely high level of… what would you call it, Varric?"

"Weird shit," said the dwarf, propped on an ottoman in the corner of the room near to Cullen's arm of the couch. He took a long drink of his own beer.

"Ah, yes. That's the one."

"Hawke was something else," Varric mumbled, dropping his chin to his chest and giving his head a small shake. "Something else."

"What happened to her?"

There was silence.

"Oh," said Eleanor, and she meant to leave it at that, but Varric went on, speaking slowly, choosing his words in a careful tone that seemed wrong for the dwarf.

"Hawke went into the Fade with us when we were dealing with Corypheus. For the second time, I mean. After what happened in Kirkwall, what happened with Anders… maybe she felt like she had nothing left to live for. Or - or maybe she felt responsible, Maker, I don't… Hawke always felt too responsible for things." Varric gave his head another shake. "Anyway, in the Fade, it was Hawke or Stroud, and Hawke let Stroud escape. We left her behind to fight. Alone." Varric stared at his hand, as though if he looked at it long enough, something would appear in the grip of the fingers working back and forth over his palm that would give him the answers he sought, if there were any answers to be had at all. "Damn you, Hawke," he said, just barely audible.

Cullen cleared his throat and raised his can. "To Marion," he said.

"To Marion," the three answered in kind, and drunk to her memory.

"You woulda liked her, Farm Girl. Woulda had a lot to talk about."

Eleanor smiled and nodded. She had liked everyone else.

"Oh, no. No no no no no," Cullen said quickly. "You two could never be in the same room together. That would just be a nightmare."

"A fun nightmare," Dorian chimed.

Cullen quickly turned his head and gave the mage a stern look.

"I hardly knew the woman!" Pavus insisted. "But she was fun."

"Yeah. Yeah, she was," said Varric. "I never got into so much trouble. And that's saying something."

Eleanor sat back, smiling, and let the three talk. She liked the noise, liked being able to have things go on around her while she could simply listen. She liked Varric's stories, and, no surprise, he was good at telling them, even if she suspected they were largely lies. But then, weren't all good stories? Eleanor wondered if maybe he would tell stories about this, about her one day; what lies and half-truths he would concoct. She didn't think this string of months needed any more livening up, true or untrue, but she looked forward to hearing about it, after the fact. In the moment, she heartily welcomed stories about anything - everything - else. For whatever time she had left, before the Wardens forced the darkspawn out of the ravine, perhaps selfishly, Eleanor wanted to forget. She wanted to sit here with Cullen rubbing her feet, drinking in the afternoon, while Dorian and Varric shot smart comments back and forth, and forget.

And for a few hours, she did.

* * *

"I have a theory," Dorian said, looking up toward the ceiling, and tugging on his earlobe. He was still seated in the armchair, but had gotten up once to refresh his drink, and then once again to retrieve an entire bottle of wine and all of the papers he had been using to collect his research on the rift, on the realities.

Varric and Cullen had gotten up a while back, leaving Dorian to his research, and Eleanor to a large pile of neglected books.

She put her finger along the spine of her current selection and closed the pages around it, turning to see Dorian now seated on the floor, surrounded by his own parchments and a few enormous codices open to this page or that, with strips of leather marking further places. She pushed her glasses up onto her hair.

"Hm?" Eleanor said, leaning over the back of the couch, carefully holding her place in her own reading.

"I think it was the First Blight?" he said, looking down once more, and tracing his fingers along some text or other in one of the enormous books.

"What was?" she asked, her attention now entirely focused on the mage.

"That closed the way between our world and yours."

"Closed? Not opened?"

He shook his head. "I don't…" he ran his index finger and his thumb along either side of his aquiline nose. "I think that… pathway was always there. I think it's meant to be. And I think thirteen hundred years ago, when the Golden City turned black, something happened. Something cut the connection, either through the Fade, or directly between your world and mine. Because of blood magic, or the slaying of the god Dumat, I cannot say. Maybe it was a combination of all of these things, as was the First Blight." He had been bowing over his papers, flipping them this way and that, but now he sat bolt upright. "My word," he breathed. "That's it."

Eleanor dropped her book, the page forgotten, and came to sit on her knees beside Dorian, feet folded beneath her, eyes frantically scanning pages that, even if they held some unnameable secret, she would not be able to find from the words that she could not read.

"What's it?" she said breathlessly, his enthusiasm bleeding into her.

He reached out, grasping her hands. "There have always been darkspawn in the Deep Roads, ever since the first few years of the First Blight. Even when the land is quiet, even when there is no surface Blight to speak of, the darkspawn are always there."

She nodded; she knew all this. He and Cullen had told her all of this more than once, but had told her this very thing on the first night when had sat down at the kitchen table and talked.

"What if…" and then he sighed, dropping her hands. "No. Never mind. It doesn't work."

Eleanor slouched, falling over to one side, letting her feet stick out from under now. "Oh you can't leave it like that," she insisted.

He shook his head. "But the Archdemon… No. It doesn't work. I had thought, perhaps the remains of the First Blight - not a new Blight, but part of the first that made it to your world - were trapped in the ravine all of this time, and the activity from the Breach, or all the rifts, had woken it back up, opened the door back up between the two worlds. That so much damage had been done to the Veil that an old, closed door was jarred back open, and the remains of the First Blight were spilt back out onto this land. But then, from where would the Archdemon come? Dumat was decidedly destroyed at the Battle of the Silent Plains." He let out a deep breath and stooped forward again, looking defeated.

"But what if this is a new Archdemon?"

Dorian shook his head. "Well, clearly it is," he agreed, not seeing where she was going with this.

"No, I mean: what if you're right? What if the First Blight broke the bond between this world and Thedas, and that bond was broken for all these years, keeping the darkspawn on this side of the barrier away from Thedas, dormant or something, I don't know, can they do that? Find someway to hibernate, or even just survive? And when the Veil tore or the Breach opened, it broke down that barrier, and the darkspawn reached an… an Old God."

Dorian's grey-green eyes locked onto hers.

"Eleanor. I could kiss you."

"Please don't."

"I won't," he grinned. "This does, however, imply something even more tragic."

"The Blight is on both sides."

"You're correct about that. But that's not what's tragic about it."

"Oh?"

"It means," he said, flipping shut a book with a loud thump, "that Cassandra was right."


	56. I'll Save You

"So these two worlds were one world, huh?" said Varric, one hand on his chin, propped against the arm of the couch. "I knew something was off about this whole thing."

"'Off' is a gentle way of putting it," said Dorian, looking up from the coffee table where he was composing a report to send to the Inquisitor. He was going to leave as soon as he was finished writing - he would tell her in person, of course, but it was better to have the account written in his own hand instead of trusting the details to a scribe, or even to Josephine. She was plenty intelligent, he knew that, but he didn't want her to miss any of the nuance. It was better he did it himself, even as he decided what to leave in and what to keep out - how much to include about the fabric of the world, the nail that had caught the strings and tugged them out of place, the darning that had worked them right again. He should stick to the details; the middle of the Blight was neither the time or the place to wax poetical about the nature of reality, but "Dear Inquisitor: The worlds are supposed to be joined. You can blame Tevinter for this one too; terribly sorry about all that. Best wishes, Dorian," seemed a bit blunt.

"Are you certain about this?" Cullen asked, putting a gently hand on Eleanor's shoulder.

Her head listed from side to side. "Ask him," she hitched a thumb at Dorian. "I'm not sure about anything."

"Well, if either of you have a better idea, do speak up," he said, not taking his eyes away from his paper. "Otherwise, let me write. The faster I have this down, the faster I'm off."

"Alright," Cullen allowed, and tightened his grip a bit on Eleanor's arm, to pull her from the living room and out into the hallway.

"Well, this is certainly… unexpected," he said softly, leaning against the hall closet door.

"Oh, just this?" Eleanor asked, a sharp sarcasm in her voice. "Not say, all of this?" and she moved her fingers in circles at the floor, pointing to her, to him, to the world.

"Ah, yes. That too."

She crossed her arms and rolled her eyes, but she did it with a broad smile.

"If…" he began slowly, and a color rose to his face suddenly. "If our two worlds are meant to be joined…"

She knew where he was going with this. "Hold your horses, there, buddy," she said, and reached out, putting a flat hand firm on his chest. She looked back into the living room and lowered her voice as she said, "I've told you how I feel. You've told me the same. And I meant it when I said that I didn't have any long-term plans, other than the fact that I'd like to be with you." Her fingers curled up into a loose fist, pressing weakly on his firm chest as she pulled herself a little further forward.  
"Cullen, I like you. I love you, I do. But the status of our two worlds isn't going to push me into anything… more. Whatever that means. Not yet." She saw a wounded look in his eyes. "But you also have to trust me when I say that even if that link is broken, for whatever reason, I'm not sure that would be enough to keep us apart." She winced. "Fuck. That was -"

" - so entirely corny," he bit off her words with a smile. "Alright. Point taken." He reached out and ruffled her brown hair, before taking the back of her head in his hands and pulling her in for a kiss.

Behind them, Varric whistled.

"You two," he said, "are lucky to have each other. Not a lot a happy couples come out of stuff like this. Speaking from… well, let's just call it experience."

"Go to your room," Eleanor insisted, but Cullen simply took a firm grasp on Eleanor's hand.

"Could say the same to you," he said, waggling an eyebrow and heading for the stairs.

"Now, then," said Dorian, coming from the living room, with a sheaf of paper stacked under his arm and the letter he had just compose in his hand, "I'm off. Behave yourselves," he said with a wink.

It was Varric who called down from the top of the stairs. "Behave? Sparkler, when have you ever known us to behave."

He pointed, turning back with a smile. "Exactly."

* * *

"Hey, El?" said Cullen, laying in the dark, smoking a cigarette.

"Hm?"

"I love you."

"Mhm," she said, laying on her side. She was snuggling a pillow while he sat up, unable to sleep, though she found herself drifting quickly off. "Love you too," she answered, her voice thick.

Cullen reached out, smoothed her hair with his hand. She made a satisfied noise and didn't move away from his affections. Her eyes were closed and Eleanor felt herself drawn toward a gentle abyss.

"El?"

She sighed. "Cul?"

"Are you afraid?"

Eleanor brought her hand to her face, rubbing underneath her left eye, to try and shake the sleep off. She rolled over, sat up, and yawned, fluffing her pillow up behind her back. Leaning over, she rested on Cullen's shoulder. Her eyes threatened to slip closed again, but she answered him honestly. "Of course I'm afraid."

Cigarette nestled between his index and middle fingers, Cullen rubbed his hairline with his thumb, his ring finger. "I don't want to make you go through this."

"Cullen," she said, trying to shake the sleep from her voice. "You're not making me do anything, you know that right?"

"I just -"

"I could have turned you away a hundred times for a hundred reasons. I didn't," she wrapped an arm around him and held onto his side with slender fingers. "I could still. But I didn't. And I won't. We're fighting, remember? Together."

He leaned over to put the cigarette in the ashtray and then tipped down to kiss the hair on the top of her head, smoothing it away from her cheeks as he wrapped an arm around her. "Point taken, El."

She looked up at him from where her head rested against his shoulder and asked, "Are you? Afraid, I mean."

"Absolutely."

She took in a deep breath, sleep reaching into her and grabbing her by the bones now. Eyes closed, she said slowly, "Don't be. I'll save you."

She felt him laugh softly, but if he said anything after that she never heard it, as Eleanor slipped into sleep like slipping under water.

* * *

When Dorian returned, he was not alone.

"Evelyn!" Eleanor cried, and ran off of the porch into the snow, despite her slippered feet, to give the Inquisitor a hug, before realizing what it was she was actually doing. Evelyn, however, freely returned the embrace, kissing Eleanor on her cheeks.

"What are you doing here?" Cullen asked from the porch.

"Came to see if it was true, all this about the worlds being joined. I thought this would be the best place to do some looking around."

"You… mean to go down there?"

The Inquisitor put her hand on Eleanor's shoulder and answered Cullen as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. "Of course I do. Once I help you slay a dragon."

* * *

Eleanor apologized for not having a spare room for the Inquisitor, until Cullen offered to move his things into Eleanor's room. She gave him a sideways, glance, but a smile split her lips, whether she wanted it to or not. What was the point, she realized, of fighting it? The Inquisitor said that she didn't mean to impose, but Cullen insisted. And then Eleanor insisted. And Evelyn helped them carry Cullen's things downstairs, arms as full as either of the other's.

Once the Inquisitor was settled in, Eleanor sat on the edge of her bed, looking at all of Cullen's things that surrounded her - clothes, books, armor - things not yet put away because she didn't quite have a place for them.

"Ah, so, yes, I know we just talked about this," said the commander from the doorway. He looked absolutely put in his place as he looked at Eleanor, who sat crossed-legged, elbows on knees, cheeks in palms, looking at the things that surrounded her. He scratched his temple, looking away.

Eyebrows knit, Eleanor murmured under her breath, "Well, I guess we're going to need a bigger dresser."

* * *

The first wave of darkspawn appeared two days later.


	57. A Few Unexpected Reinforcements

Cullen was asleep beside Eleanor, as he often was at the small hour of three in the morning.

It was she, then, who sat bolt upright.

His loose t-shirt was bunched up around her ribs, and when she awoke, panicking, she ripped at it with her hands before realizing that it was only clothing, and that it wasn't only clothing. The panic that crushed her chest, pushed forcefully into her lungs, into her mind, did not abate when the shirt fell back down to her waist. Something was tugging at her, tearing at her heart, and she freed herself from Cullen's grasp, freed herself from the sheets, and went to the kitchen, to the window over the sink that faced the kitchen, faced the rift, faced the ravine.

She saw the lights, lights she knew weren't natural, and felt the magic, dark magic, twisted magic. Hurlock emissaries.

They had a patrol out; had had a patrol out every night since the Inquisition troops had arrived. There were over a hundred of them, but only just, a far cry from triple that amount of what Cullen had hoped for. Mages had cleared away the snow near the barn so that the soldiers in tents would at least have somewhere dry to sleep, but overnight it had begun to fall again, and Eleanor opened the back door and looked off to the right to see white powder being shaken off of brown tents as the soldiers were roused by a runner, a soldier who must have been part of the group on patrol. The cold air seared Eleanor's bare legs and she slammed shut the door, not caring about silence; she'd have to wake up the whole house anyway. It might be pointless - if it were just a mob of darkspawn meeting the patrol, it would mean nothing, same as all the times Cullen's troops had fought small bands of the creatures in all the months before. But if it were not… if it were not…

She dashed back into the bedroom and immediately went to the bed. She gave Cullen a kiss on the forehead, quick but rough, and said, "C'mon, Cul. Gotta go," and she went to the wardrobe for her robes, her staff. His things had been packed away in the same cabinet, her same dresser, as best as she could do, but she waited to turn on the light and yank his things free for him until his legs were over the side of the bed. She was not that cruel.

"What's the situation?" he asked, rubbing the bridge of his nose as he felt around on the bed for the items - socks, boxers, miscellaneous pieces of plate mail which she tossed more gently - that fell onto the mattress beside him as Eleanor pulled them from this draw or that as she clothed herself in her own layers of undergarments, a thin sweater, her robes.

"Darkspawn. Past the Breach. I… I felt them before I saw them. Don't know how many, but the runner roused the soldiers by the barn," she told him, as she hopped gracelessly into a boot.

"Shit," he said, slapping his face, rubbing his hair vigorously to try and shake the sleep off. It had been easier to do before, back when he hadn't had something, someone, so soft and warm and comforting to sleep beside. He was getting too old for this. He was getting too content.

Eleanor, however, was off like a shot, dressed in everything but her cloak and sash as Cullen began to pull on his socks. She left the bedroom, wound her footsteps around Swiffer who yelped at her for making such a noise and such an hour, and fled for the stairs.

Cullen shook his head. Maybe he was just getting too old. Eleanor was nearly thirty but still nine years his junior, and for the briefest instant, he wondered if maybe their differences in age would pose an issue. He sighed at himself; he knew it wasn't true, but he never felt older than at three o'clock in the morning with the threat of attack looming. He knew that darkspawn hated the daylight, knew that this was their preferred hour, but he silently hoped that they would come at noon, sometime just after a late breakfast, or an early lunch.

Eleanor, on the other hand, awoken by the creeping surge of magic within her, by that sense that she would have to use it, was bolting up the stairs and knocking on doors, though something in her gut, maybe magic, maybe not, told her that Evelyn was already awake. She thrummed three times on each door, and by the time she'd reached Varric's room, the furthest down the hall, Evelyn's was swinging open and the Inquisitor was asking for a report. Eleanor quickly rattled off the same thing she had told Cullen and Evelyn nodded like she had suspected as much, and perhaps she had; Evelyn was not only a few years older than Eleanor, but had had her powers all her life; moreover, Evelyn, perhaps because of her affinity with the Anchor in her hand or perhaps independent of it, had trained in a kind of magic that allowed her to master the Fade and become more acquainted with the rift. Perhaps she had used it to sense the darkspawn; or perhaps she simply had the same burning in her belly, the same clutching nameless nightmare that had awoken Eleanor.

She heard movement in the other two rooms now, saw Evelyn retreat to deck herself out in armor, to grab her own staff, and so Eleanor went back down the stairs to find Cullen mostly dressed, attaching plate to his shoulders, to his shins. She pushed gently past him to fix her staff to herself, to run her sash around her waist and check the pockets for her supply of lyrium. Dorian had more, but these few vials she thought would be enough. Hoped would be.

Cinching the leather around her waist with a small silver buckle, she heard a cry from outside. She flung her cloak over her shoulders so that it felt to one side of her staff and flipped her hood up over her head.

"Let's go, handsome," she said, and with powerful strides she went past Cullen once more and to the bedroom door. But he reached out, grabbed her, pulled her against his chest.

"Eleanor," he said, using her full name for the first time in a long time. "I will try to stay by your side. But please - be careful."

Her wont to make a wry joke blossomed, but when she realized with what a deadly seriousness he spoke, she instead reached up to smooth his coarse hair with a leather-gloved hand. "Of course, Cullen. I will."

"Please," he reinforced, "I can't -"

But boots trampled down the stairs and made Eleanor deaf to his words. She rose up on the balls of her feet and kissed him roughly on the lips, her hood dropping back an inch before she pulled away, leaving the bedroom to join Evelyn and Varric as Dorian called down the stairs that he was coming.

"Alright," said Eleanor. "Let's move." And despite their relative ranks, everyone respected her command.

The snow was falling heavy now, coloring the ground blue-grey under the moonless, cloudy sky. Eleanor trudged forward, wordlessly taking the lead, fearless even knowing what she was going into. Her four companions fell in behind her, walking silently through the darkness. To their right, Inquisition soldiers marched toward the ravine, the sounds of any impending battle completely drowned out by the sounds of marching, of the jangling of buckles and weapons, the whispers of speculating voices that together reached a dull buzz. And still, the falling snow muffled it all.

It happened all at once, then: an errant blast from a hurlock staff came buzzing toward the soldiers and was deflected by a shield, the polished surface sending the scorching orb skyward. The soldiers that had until now only been marching broke into a charge, forming previously inscrutable ranks, now perfectly obvious even amongst the rushing chaos. Beside Eleanor, Cullen drew his sword and picked up his pace, not running ahead like the troops but moving ahead of Eleanor with his shield out on his left arm as he blocked Eleanor's body with the blade in his right. Varric twanged Bianca's string furtively, loading an arrow and resting the butt of his crossbow on his shoulder. Dorian and Evelyn whipped their staves out, and Eleanor felt the comforting embrace of protection, of safety, falling down around her. She knew that it was temporary, but it steeled her enough to make her feet match Cullen's through the snow, to draw her own staff and summon her strength, pushing forward and keeping pace into the fray.

They were long past the Breach, covering the miles toward the ravine on light feet, and the darkspawn that had managed to stray this far, not even the furthest they'd ever been, the closest they'd ever been to home, were already corpses. The soldiers ran past, now and again grabbing loosed arrows from lifeless chests, grabbing spare axes and swords. Despite the distance from the ravine, the lack of living enemy combatants further instilled only confidence in Eleanor, and judging by the eagerness with which her companions continued their approach, she thought that they must feel the same. Even the snow beneath their feet was trampled down, hard-packed, and there was no drag of their boots through the snow; the flakes that landed on their face were merely cool, almost refreshing against their exertion.

And as if because Eleanor thought that this might be alright, that the soldiers might see all of the action and that by the time they approached the ravine there might be nothing left but corpses, the ground beneath their feet seemed to shift and shudder, and she narrowed her eyes and though the ravine was still far, so far away, she saw something black against the dark blue of the sky, against the white of the snow, and it seemed to ooze up over the edge of the horizon, to bubble up out the earth though the actual gash in the ground was still too far to be seen. It took her mind a moment to process that what she was seeing was not a black wash up close, but hundreds - more than hundreds - of black-clad darkspawn soldiers charging across the ground many miles away.

All around her, feet slowed. Her own legs suddenly felt heavy, felt not just the strain of the distance she had already run but the distance she still had before her, and the strain of swinging her staff, of summoning herself to fight such an infinite horde. Was it over before it had begun? Was this the end already? Even if all of the Grey Wardens, all of the soldiers had survived their journey in the Deep Roads, there were only three hundred of them, three hundred and fifty at the most. Ahead of them, Eleanor could not even imagine counting the individual numbers in the black swarm.

Her feet threatened to come to a stop, knees threatened to give out below her, but beside her, Evelyn pointed her staff ahead and it seemed to burst into life, into light. She felt Evelyn's magic next to her, joining the two of them together somehow, and Eleanor took a deep breath, and picked up her pace once more, catching up with Cullen and letting the flow of her own magic swell into her chest.

The darkspawn approached as, from the other direction, the Inquisition forces went to meet them.

The snow clouds overhead, at first oppressive, now seemed a signal to Eleanor, and as she heard the clash of steel on steel before her as the first soldiers met the frontrunners of the swarm of darkspawn, she reached out and ahead of her, into the grey of the sky, the heaviness of the clouds, and through them, Eleanor found it much easier to pull down a storm, to bring down the chill of the heavens, and the chill that permeated the air became a blast, raining down on the darkspawn before her, freezing them to the spot, making their bodies fragile against the soldier's attacks. The bulk of the darkspawn still seemed miles away, but she did her best to help the forces pick off the advance parties to avoid any early - the word was slow in coming to her, though she knew it from the start - casualties. Alongside her, Varric helped, sending a hail of arrows into the frozen darkspawn, and when the bolts made contact with the darkspawns' bodies, they crumbled, becoming nothing more than a part of the snow underfoot.

To see her own power on such a large scale gave Eleanor pause - what gave he the right to be able to inflict such damage upon other living things? Certainly the darkspawn were not human, were barely sentient, but nevertheless, under her thumb she, with the help of her companions, crushed them like insects. Was this her place? Was this right?

As an opposing arrow flew past her head and she quickly jerked to the side, her thoughts were almost entirely quelled. It was her or them - she knew that, had never not known that - and just as soon as she caught her breath. she would smash every one of the darkspawn to powder. There would be plenty of time to reflect on the ethical intricacies of her power when she was not at risk of an arrow to the skull.

Far ahead, the black mass on the horizon seemed to be rushing forward, behind it a wave of silver: the soldiers that had gone into the Deep Roads were rushing out now, on the heels of the darkspawn, and the biting cold air carried the sounds of the fight more clearly now than before, perhaps because they were no long below the surface, perhaps because the air was free of all else but falling snow. The quiet, hesitant clashes and clangs became a roar, a surge of noise washing over Eleanor as she pushed forward, only paces behind Cullen as his sword effortlessly lopped off the head of the first genlock he encountered. It skidded past Eleanor, bouncing on the cold earth, its eyes blinking even as black blood poured from the stump of its neck. She didn't have time to be disgusted; she had less still to be afraid. Cullen's shield crashing into the body of another genlock, his sword stabbing over, under the round of metal strapped to his left arm. The darkspawn fell, and Eleanor rushed to his right side, swinging her staff out in front of him. From the earth erupted a wall of ice, freezing the darkspawn immediately before him, and giving him a temporary spot to breathe, for Eleanor to breathe, as more and more enemies plunged ever nearer. She held still only a moment, just long enough to take the bitter air into her lungs, and she shut her eyes, sliding past the protective wall, sliding not around but through a shriek, sending bolts from her staff into its mangled body and bringing it down. Dorian, only feet from her, shielded her once more and sent the other enemies around her running in terror from some horror he forced them to imagine, while Evelyn summoned some terrible pull, some small rift that drew the enemies not fleeing in fear toward her, dragging them in, and with another sweep of her hand, she brought the form of a fist down onto what were once darkspawn, but now were just a tangle of crumpled limbs and armor on the packed snow.

"You'll have to show me that one!" Eleanor called out to her, at the same time using the physicality of her staff to knock a genlock to its knees before she froze it solid and blasted it in the head with her staff.

"Anytime!" Evelyn hollered back, shooting a blast of purple missiles out from the palm of her free hand and into the backs of a distant hurlock.

Moving ahead of her, Eleanor saw Cullen reach skyward, and before him a pillar of light lit up the field, a dozen or so darkspawn recoiling from the brightness. He struck out not with his blade but with his shield, mashing a blinded darkspawn in the chest with the solid metal, then flipping his sword over skillfully in his hand, knocking a second one under the chin with the pommel.

The pommel, Eleanor smiled, remembering, even as with a flick of his wrist, he spun the blade around again, deflecting a blow from an axe and plunging the steel deep into the side of the stunned darkspawn. He found gaps in their armor as though his sword was drawn to them like filings to a magnet.

"Plenty of time for chit chat later on, ladies!" he called and surged ahead.

"Pardon our girl talk, Commander!" she shouted, one hand cupped playfully to her mouth, the other stamping the butt of her staff on the ground to refocus herself before whipping it around viciously, firing shot after shot after shot into shrieks and genlocks alike.

"Don't listen to him," Varric insisted, as he paused for a moment to line up a shot, and Eleanor turned to see what he was aiming so carefully at. "A little banter never hurt anyone." Something huge in the distance was lumbering toward them, swaying back and forth under its own weight. Varric let his bolt fly, and it struck the huge beast in the chest, stopping it dead in its tracks.

"Excellent, dwarf," called Dorian, "now, we all might want to move," he cautioned, and ahead of him, just at the distance of the large creature, an explosion burst forth, consuming the beast and several of the darkspawn that surrounded it.

"Yeah, that'll piss 'im off," agreed Varric, and he and Dorian both dashed off to either side as the huge beast scuffed its feet in the snow like a bull and then charged forward at a speed that Eleanor would not have thought something so big, so awkward, capable of, and she barely had time to roll out of the way, hood falling too far forward on her head as she sprang to her feet once more.

Pulling the fabric out of her eyes, she called, "What on earth is that!" She enforced a coldness around herself, a willing chill that would protect her as she sent bolt after bolt into the beast.

"Ogre!" Dorian called from the opposite side of the creature, as Varric carefully backed away from the creature, firing a single bolt into the thing's head. It rose up, roaring.

"Well, that didn't work!" he shouted, backing even further away.

Evelyn reached up, tearing something from the sky - a solid boulder, which then came crashing down onto the ogre's spine.

"That did," she said, wiping a hand across her brow.

"I should say," Dorian said, giving the thing a quick poke with the butt end of his staff, and then hurrying forward again, as more darkspawn rushed to meet them.

They fought wave after wave, forcing closer and closer to the ravine, leaving nothing but bodies, burnt, bleeding, frozen, dismembered, in their wake. The Inquisition troops fought well, obeying perfectly Cullen's every command on the occasions that he called across the field to give one. Mostly, however, it was just a matter of driving forward as the soldiers that had come out of the ravine forced in from the other direction. Small groups had split off on either side to keep the darkspawn penned in, to keep them from fleeing into the night as the two groups of soldiers pressed closer and closer together. It seemed as though their numbers might be equal now, three hundred or so darkspawn for three hundred or so Inquisition troops, though if any had fallen or how many Eleanor could not say. It was naive to assume that because their ranks looked intact that they had lost no people. As if to reinforce this notion, beside her, a hurlock's fiery blast lit up on a woman dressed in light mail, the two daggers she had clutched falling down into the snow.

Eleanor took a long stride as she hollered out, "Cullen! Cover me!" even as she constructed a wall of ice in front of her, in front of the fallen, screaming woman. He heeded her cry and rushed for the hurlock who was aiming a blast at his target once more.

"Hey, there," said Eleanor softly to the burnt woman. "I need you to close your eyes and take a deep breath, okay?" The wounded soldier tried to obey, but the breath she drew in caught again and again in her chest. Eleanor brought down a rush of cold to soothe the woman's pain, and filled her body with that familiar warmth, warmth that surged down to fill the fallen woman. Eleanor gave her what she could, and laid the soldier down flat on the cool earth. "Rest here a minute. Join us again when you can." Eleanor stood again, stretching, finding that quiet rush in the cold, in the stillness, trying to let the mana surge back into her core.

That was when she heard it. They all heard it. That sickening screech, the flap of rotten, leathery wings.

"The Archdemon!" someone called, and even from the brave soldiers, small gasps, even cries rose up as the dark thing flew overhead, the beating of its wings stirring the falling snow into unnatural vortices around its terrible black body.

"Where are the Wardens!?" another soldier cried.

And a voice answered: a voice rich and deep, clipped with a familiar accent. "They are here!"

"Cassandra!" she heard Evelyn shout through the fray.

"Inquisitor!"

Ahead of her, as Eleanor brought down another gusting storm on a cluster of shrieks, she saw the two women quickly embrace, tears of relief sparkling in Evelyn's eyes.

"I am so glad to see you, Inquisitor," cried Cassandra over the sound of the fight. "We lost a few Wardens and perhaps two dozen soldiers below," she flung a gloved hand toward the ravine. "But we forced the beast out!"

"Excellent work, Cassandra!" Evelyn shouted.

"Stroud was tracking the Archdemon - he should be nearby," Cassandra's dark eyes darted across the field, "and," she added, her voice lifting, not in volume but in tone, "we had a few unexpected reinforcements after you left."

"What -" Evelyn began, and then she saw Sera leaping down from the back of a falling ogre, Iron Bull's large shape revealed behind. There was also a small - or was he small at all? - boy in a large hat who seemed to dart inexplicably from genlock to genlock, two daggers flashing wildly before each of the darkspawn fell.

"Don't tell me," Evelyn said, "Cole just wanted to help."

Cassandra's face formed a tight frown, "He would not be swayed from it."

"Head's up, Seeker!" shouted Varric as he dashed forward, as he leapt spryly from the back of the tumbled, Bianca shooting off several arrows before the dwarf's feet hit the ground. "Good to see you, Buttercup!" he called back to Sera, who touched her head to mimic tipping a hat.

"I'll say," called Evelyn.

And then the Archdemon circled around once more, its screaming a plaintive sound amongst the crashing of metal, the screams of soldier and darkspawn alike.

A tall, bearded man strolled up to Evelyn, his sword glistening with thick black blood. "The question is, Inquisitor: how do we reach that thing?"

"He's got an excellent question, Boss!" Iron Bull said, swinging a massive axe around in a wide circle, taking down a half a dozen darkspawn in one blow. "Don't know about you mages, but I can't just spread my wings and fly! And unless Blackwall knows something he'd like to share with the group…" Iron Bull approached and slapped the bearded man - Blackwall - on the back, but the ruddy-faced warrior didn't seem to appreciate the gesture.

"Cullen!" Evelyn called to him. He acknowledged her with a nod but first dropped his stance to smash a hurlock in the knees with his shield before plunging his sword into its neck. Rising powerfully to his full height, face streaked with sweat, with blood, he looked from Sera to Varric to Dorian to Evelyn to Eleanor. Bringing the back of his wrist to wipe the salt water from his eyes, he sucked in a deep breath and said, "We're going to have to bring it down."

* * *

 _Author's Note:_ Sorry for the long break in posting. Been in a weird (not bad, just weird) headspace the last couple of days where I've only wanted to read except that I'm supposed to start working on an article for Daily Dose and I have to do my taxes and I have to email my beta and I might start writing science articles for a zine again -

So, there's that. In reality, that is going to take no time, I'm not on any strict deadlines (okay except for the taxes thing) and all of this is very low to no pressure but the fact that it exists at all and all I want to do is read books about cats is not really jiving right now. So I'm glad that this here chapter ended up being especially long as a little treat for you.

As another little treat, I am working on a little _Inquisition, Indiana_ themed mix if you guys are into fan mixes and I'll be posting that at the very end of the very last chapter (because it contains some loose spoilers if you read too much into the theme of the tape) WHICH IS ONLY FIVE CHAPTERS AWAY OH MY GOODNESS. And yes, assuming my brain doesn't just entirely drop the ball for another week, there will be a chapter this Sunday, the 27th, which will be Easter for some folks. It will be sitting at home and eating pizza day for me, but then, that's most Sundays.


	58. There's a Whole World

Stroud stood beside Eleanor, as Cullen commanded any and all troops who were not currently engaged, or could lend an ear to listen as he shouted his orders, the soldiers surround Stroud and Eleanor, and Sera, Varric, Dorian, and Evelyn hanging back and firing arrows or blasts without giving up their position.

"You know," he said, hands folded behind his back, tipping to his right to speak to her more clearly as his eyes remained fixed on the sky, "the Wardens once fought the Archdemons on the backs of griffons." He thumped a fist to his chest, where the emblem of the Wardens was etched - an elaborate design of a creature with an eagle's head and wings and the body and paws of a lion. "The stories that are told of those airborne battles are breathtaking… But to have actually seen them? I cannot imagine."

"What happened to them? The griffons?" Eleanor's eyes too remained locked to the sky as she asked, but her mind swam with thoughts of enormous creatures swarming the Archdemon as riders flung magic and arrows at it from a distance merely of years, not miles; of riders leaping from the backs of their mounts to engage in combat in midair.

"They all died," his voice was heavy with sorrow. "They were tainted, not by any normal means, not through the blood or the bite of a darkspawn, but through blood magic - magic that was meant to save the creatures. The griffons turned on each other, on themselves, and destroyed. They were tainted because they were Joined, as all Grey Wardens are, but the griffons could not handle the trauma. They either fought each other, or killed themselves, until there were none left." He stood up straight again, eyes following the Archdemon overhead. It had made no move to attack on its own, seeming to watch the battle as Eleanor was currently watching it. Her grip tightened on her staff, and she looked down now at the chaos around her, both longing and fearing to rejoin the fight, longing and fearing to take the fight to the beast that circled overhead.

If any jets flew above the farm now, any helicopters buzzed the highway - but that was unlikely. The blizzard above had only intensified, and now as the small hours of morning gave way to dawn, the heavy clouds permitted only the dullest grey light through; there were no colors of sunrise to be seen. The storm was fierce, the wind whipped at her robes, her cloak, pushed her hood off of her head, and then flung it back up on again; the snow had begun to fall so thickly she could see only a few ranks of soldiers beyond. The rest fought in and out of a murky grey haze of washed out light and puffy white flakes that looked soft until a gust threw them back into Eleanor's eyes, and she squinted against the storm. She doubted anyone would see them; they were miles from anything. The closest thing to them was the highway, and no one would drive the highway in a storm like this. If they did, they would see a dark shape moving in and out of the clouds, if that, nothing more.

How strange, she thought, that in the middle of this forlorn patch of farmland, was a battle for something the nearest inhabitants could certainly never hope to understand. And here she was, in the middle of it, the white snow collecting on her dark hair, as the voice of a man clad in armor, wielding a sword, a man commanded an army of soldiers who fought not with bombs and guns but with swords and magic, a man from a world very different - and yet, how much the same - a man she loved, as the voice of that man shouted, clear through the cold air: "Do not allow the darkspawn into the circle! The archers and mages must bring the Archdemon down! Do not attack the Archdemon - leave that to the Wardens! We want to end this Blight, not prolong it! The Fifth Blight was won in a year!" He thrust his sword to the heavens. "Let us shame the Fifth Blight! Let us end the Sixth in a day!"

A beautiful sentiment, Eleanor thought, but it had not been a day. It had been months. It had very nearly been the year which Cullen now scorned - could possibly have been more, could possibly have lasted the thirteen hundred years since the First Blight, creeping and crawling below the surface until the time was right to strike, until the Veil tore just so… But as she watched him through the heavy, rushing snow, her voice joined the voices of the soldiers that Cullen commanded, and when he asked them to end the Blight in a day, she too raised her staff to the sky and cried and affirmation, as did the voices all around her. Cullen turned back to her and pushed through the ranks of troops, sliding his sword hastily into its sheath. Shield still buckled to his left arm, he reached around her with his right, pulling her roughly against his bitter cold, hard armor, and kissed her hard on the mouth, nearly lifting her feet from the ground. When his mouth broke away from hers, he touched their foreheads together and said, his voice a bare whisper above the sound of the storm, "I promised you we would fight." His eyelids slipped shut and he implored, "Promise me this won't be the last time I kiss you."

"Not on your life," she promised.

"Eleanor, I -" his voice caught, and he shook his head, pulling away. "Bring that bastard down."

All she could do was assent to his command.

Somewhere in the distance, she heard Cassandra shout, the tall woman's voice distinct even here, amongst the din, and she looked up. Cullen's eyes followed hers. Above, the Archdemon was swooping down low, and from its mouth spewed… darkness. There was no other word for it. Where any other dragon might have gushed fire, this dragon breathed despair.

"Down!" she heard Cullen shout without realizing the voice was coming from him; only knew that she had to drop. Around her, bodies hit the ground, the snow and mud clinging to all, except for the Inquisitor who stood upright still, bringing a green dome around the circle of archers and mages, and the darkness reflected off of it as the dragon drew up again and into the sky, shrieking its lament as it rose again to the clouds.

Beside her, a prone Cullen lifted his head and shouted across the circle, "If we do this, we do this now!"

Evelyn nodded, lowering her hand, and everyone climbed to their feet around her.

"Stroud!" he called "Are your people ready?"

"As we'll ever be, Commander!"

"Good! You don't need me to tell you what to do," he said, and Cullen turned away, striding through the green barrier as it began to dissipate. Eleanor hadn't noticed the silence, but now the noise rushed back in, and she heard not just the chaos around her, but screams.

The Archdemon's darkness clung to soldiers, doing a damage she couldn't see, couldn't describe, but she knew she had to do something. Clutching for a moment of peace, a moment of focus before she would send her efforts to the winged beast, Eleanor sucked whatever moisture she could from her mouth, her eyelids fluttering closed. Both her hands tightened on her staff, and she pushed forth a great wave of cleansing energy, a soothing kind of healing she couldn't name. The effort wracked her to her very core and she trembled, putting her whole weight on the staff for balance now. She knew that it would hold; she was only worried that she wouldn't. Weakly, she reached into her belt for a slim bottle of lyrium. She uncorked it and took only a sip before sealing it once more and slipping the rest away. Instantly, she stood up straight, her eyes fixed on Cullen, giving him a nod to signal that she was ready - as Stroud had said, as ready as she would ever be.

"Archers!" he pointed his sword at the dragon. "Let fly!"

Behind Eleanor, she heard Bianca's distinct twang, heard Sera curse playfully; and from the ranks of soldiers she heard the thrum of a dozen more arrows taking flight, though she could never have seen them through the snow. Around them, the clash of combat still sung, but Eleanor could only make out the dark shapes of shrieks and soldiers through the snow. Mounds of bodies were begin to pile up around them.

The Archdemon dipped lower, but whether it was harmed by the arrows or just annoyed, Eleanor could not yet say.

"Mages! Now!" the commander cried, and Eleanor summoned up a storm to rival the one that consumed them, aiming all of its fury at the Archdemon. Around her, a dozen different kinds of magic flew, all seeking the same target. More than half hit home, and the beast wailed, folding its wings against its massive black body as it began a rapid descent.

If nothing else, the creature was pissed.

"Back! Away!" she heard Cullen's desperate bellow, and she realized that the Archdemon was coming in to land. She turned on her heel and fled, her companions keeping pace with her flight. Behind her, the ground suddenly gave a violent tremble. Nearly tripping over her own feet, Eleanor turned, and found herself almost face-to-face with the dragon; she had not realized its true size when it remained in the air, and it had flown past too quickly in the Deep Roads for her to get a good sense of its mass. But here, on the ground, barely yards from her, she almost froze. The thing was as long as three city busses, as tall as her house. It must have weighed a hundred tons.

And as good as beside her head, it screamed.

For a moment, Eleanor's whole world went quiet. She pitched herself to the ground, rolled out of the way. Her fingers found purchase in the snow, in the mud, and she drug herself away from the beast, feet kicking as her arms almost swum, throwing her staff out in front of her with each desperate grab. She saw soldiers to either side of her, saw the jagged boots of darkspawn, but all she could hear was a ringing, could only feel the silent pound of feet as the footsteps reverberated in her chest as her head sang. Forcing herself to stand, Eleanor pushed a small wave of warmth through her own body, for a moment dropping her staff and smacking her muddy, cold gloves to the sides of her head. Her braid was coming undone, and free locks of hair whipped at her eyes, but slowly, sound began to come back, dimly at first, but then louder, sharper. She gave her head one last shake and reached for her staff, aiming it at the rotting black creature that stalked the ground before her.

It was the first time she saw them, separate of all of the other troops. The Grey Wardens charged forward, people of all races and skills, charging toward the gargantuan monster, blades drawn, bows strung, staves at the ready. Their blue-grey armor glinted even in the sickly morning light, and she realized then, that every last one of them must have been ready to die. Her breath caught in her chest as her eyes desperately scanned the field for Cullen; he had been closer to the Archdemon than she and she had nearly been trampled, nearly gone deaf.

Eleanor finally caught sight of him, a red and black blur darting up to the belly of the beast, nearly leaping to thrust his sword between its ribs. It would take much more than that to deliver a killing blow, but Eleanor found herself flinching even still, not wanting to have to do this more than once. Nevertheless, she readied her own staff, and sent a shower of freezing blasts at the beast's head, backing up a step with each shot until she wasn't sure she could aim reliably if she backed away any further.

"Farm Girl! Behind you!" Dozens of feet away, she heard Varric's cry, and Eleanor spun, whipping a wall of ice around her, stopping a genlock in its tracks just inches from where she stood. She narrowed her eyes fiercely, and she whipped out with her staff and shattered the darkspawn to pieces. Around her now, on the ground, she planted a glyph to freeze any other saboteurs that might approach.

"Much obliged, Varric!" she shouted through the din, and unleashed another torrent of frost down onto the Archdemon, but she felt herself starting to fade. She needed to pause, needed to take a breath, and she put her hands on her knees, clutching her staff under her arm, sucking in the thin, cold air, seeking the briefest stillness.

It wasn't to be found. Ahead, the Archdemon quickly hunkered down, and then thrust itself back into the sky with a powerful flap of its torn, leathery wings.

"God damn it!" she shouted into the wind, even as the gust from the creature's wingbeats threatened to throw her to the ground once more. Cullen ran to her side, raising a hand to his eyes as though to blot out the sun though it was only snow that he was keeping away with his thickly gloved hand.

Evelyn, a few feet behind, shouted, "Where is it going?"

Eleanor tried to orient herself, having got entirely turned around in the shuffle. She turned in a circle, found herself facing a louder sound and decided that that way must be the ravine, which meant the dragon was heading for… for home?

"The Breach!" Dorian shouted as he darted past, Varric hot on his heels. "Don't let it get to the Breach!"

"Can it… can it…" but she couldn't put her thought into words as she and Cullen took off after them.

Behind her, she heard the Inquisitor say, "It can use a kind of magic. I don't know if it can use the rifts, or open them, but whatever it does won't be good!" she assured them.

Eleanor picked up speed, the snow whipping at her skin, seeming almost orange now in the blotted-out dawn light. She could just make out the shape of the Archdemon ahead of her and she ran after it as fast as she could, her deep breaths making her suck in mouthfulls of heavy, wet precipitation, the cold making her lungs burn. She heard the rhythmic sound of many dozen footfalls behind her, and she hoped that they were the sounds of her own soldiers - the Inquisition's own soldiers - and not the horde of darkspawn following them Eleanor and her companions sought out the darkspawns' leader.

"There!" Cullen gave a shout, and ahead, Eleanor could make out a point where the dishwater orange light of the sunrise turned a striking green. They had reached the Breach, and when Eleanor felt a powerful vibration beneath her feet, she knew that the Archdemon had too. She felt the air slide past her in the wrong direction, felt the snow move away as the beast sucked in a powerful breath, and then spewed more of that darkness out over them. Behind her, she heard the sound of soldiers, heavy with armor, hit the ground, and she did the same. Above her, she felt the blackness glance her and she summoned up a wash of warmth as best as she could, sending it out to surround her for a few feet to comfort those nearest to her. Nevertheless, beyond her, she heard screams.

Eleanor rose only to her knees, no further, and tried to catch sight of any injured parties, but it was like trying to see through the static on a television. She could make out shapes, but nothing meant anything anymore; nothing but those nearest to her and the spiny black shape of the Archdemon through the discolored white of the storm.

"Wardens!" Cullen cried out, not to command them but to search for them, and in answer, armor clanged as a group of a dozen or so people approached him. "Where is your commander? Where is Stroud?" he asked any and all of the silver-clad combatants. They turned and looked from one to each, and no one answered.

Stroud. He had been right beside Eleanor the first time the Archdemon landed. And Eleanor had only just gotten out of the way, deafened still by its shriek. Perhaps he was still near the ravine, commanding whatever was left of his forces there, if there were any left to command. If there were ten or so here, and they had had twenty-five to begin… Were these now all who survived?

"Commander!" it was Cassandra, limping toward them - no, not limping, Eleanor saw as she got closer. Carrying someone who was. "Stroud is here!"

Eleanor quickly rushed toward him, leaving those with swords and daggers to combat the Archdemon.

"Stroud, Cassandra! What happened?" she asked looking the man up and down. Cassandra carefully removed the Warden's arm from over her shoulder and helped the man down to the earth. Something wasn't right.

"Wretched beast," Stroud hissed, using his arms to hold himself up as he sat in the snow, the mud. "The blasted thing crushed my leg," he said, and though his words were soft, he spat them with venom.

But as Eleanor leaned down to examine him, she could see that it had done much more than that. The man's left leg was a twisted mess of bones and blood and armor, white poking through where silver was not. The right seemed mostly unharmed, but Stroud seemed as though he could not move it. Perhaps he had been able to use it to prop himself up while Cassandra brought him over, but it lay there limp now, useless. The real damage was along the man's left side, but it wrapped along to his spine.

Eleanor looked up at Cassandra, meeting the woman's tilted dark eyes. She saw none of the Seekers former vitriol there, only concern. "Go, Cassandra," Eleanor said gently. "I'll see what I can do here," and she dropped to one knee to begin her work.

"E-eleanor," said the tall women, a gentleness in her tone that threw Eleanor off. "I did not mean what I said about you and the Commander. I was only frustrated. I should not have taken it out on him. Or you."

Eleanor shook her head, reaching out and grasping the Seeker's hand for a moment. She smiled as best as she could and gave Cassandra's hand a squeeze, before tipping her head toward the Breach and again insisting, "Go."

The Seeker nodded and took off toward the fight.

Eleanor drew her hood up over her face and came to both knees at Stroud's left side. Eleanor laid her hands on his shredded leg and he winced. She looked up at him as she let power flow through her limbs and into his. She didn't know how much she could do for the wounded man, but she could try to set the leg, try to soothe his pain.

"Well," she said, trying to force levity into her voice, "I can promise you you're going to live."

Stroud laughed a mirthless laugh. "Of course I'm not going to live, ma fifille."

She took her hands away from him and pushed her hood back.

"Don't looked shocked, my girl," Stroud adjusted himself on his hands. "I have lived far longer than most of my kind." He took a deep breath and tried to flex his mangled leg, but a wince of pain struck his expression and Eleanor brought her hands back over his twisted limbs, the snow falling all around them. "During the Fifth Blight," he said now, his voice conveying the relief brought to him by Eleanor's magic, "a Warden promised the heir to the throne that he would deal the final blow. But Riordan failed the man, and the king was never crowned." He tried again to move his leg, and it bent at the knee, though blood still seeped from his wounds. "I mean to rectify his mistake."

Eleanor flexed her fingers, breathed hard with the strain of her exertion. "There's no throne at stake today," she said, tipping her head back to stretch as she rolled her shoulders.

"No, my dear, there's not. There's a whole world."

* * *

 _Author's Note:_ So, so sorry this has taken me as long as it's taken to get up. I've been plagued with migraines and trying to stay away from the internet for a number of reasons - I know most of you don't care a whit about any of that and there comes a point when they are just excuses, but here's the deal: I am taking an internet social media hiatus of a sort, with the express purpose of spending more time on all the things I've been meaning to do, from learning Swedish, to focusing more on my crafting business to - yes, you guessed it, writing. Now the first few projects I'm working on are non-fiction publications but I do want to get back to this, and to writing original fiction (maybe I don't know we'll see). Anyway, I don't want to make any promises about posting consistently, but with four chapters left, I can promise they'll be up by the end of April, and I did finish that mix I mentioned.

Again, sorry guys. Have been in a weird brain space lately. Slowly trying to pull myself back out.


	59. That Makes One of Us

While Eleanor healed Stroud, Cullen commanded the Wardens. "Keep that thing on the ground!" he shouted. "Keep it away from the Breach!" There were only a few mages among the Wardens, and no archers to speak off. Most attacked with blades, slashing at the dragon's feet, it's head and wings when they sunk low enough to reach. The creature lashed out violently, using it's spiked head as a battering ram, knocking a row of Wardens and soldiers to their backs. A few did not seem to rise again. The Archdemon oozed black blood onto the snowy earth but showed no signs of relenting.

From the sidelines, Dorian shot flames through the creature's wings as it spread them and gave a powerful flap, and then another, the air whirling around it and pulling in anyone whose footing was not firm. But when the flames reached the leathery flesh, the Archdemon quickly retracted its wings and with a small leap, turned to face the mage, shrieking forcefully some yards from Dorian.

"You don't scare me!" Dorian cried back, and threw a wall of flame all along the beast's neck and underbelly.

"That makes one of us, Sparkler," Varric called, leaping expertly away from the dragon, launching bolt after bolt into the creature's side. The ones that did not bounce off of hard, black scales stuck deep.

Side-stepping, Cullen circled around to the opposite side of the dragon, stopping to help any prone soldiers - the ones that could be roused, at least - regain their footing as he worked closer and closer to the bulk of the beast. He went to lunge at the soft flesh under its leg, but the Archdemon jumped and took suddenly to the air. Cullen spun on his heel, spying Evelyn near where the dragon's tail had been only moments before.

"Inquisitor!" he shouted. "The Breach!"

"I can see that," she answered, and she reached up her anchor to make the small, and smaller still.

"Can you seal it?" he asked her.

"I can," she called, "but I might not be able to open another! I've never opened one from this side!"

Cullen cursed under his breath, pressing the back of his thumb to his forehead. There was a tingling in his limbs that he knew was from magic in the air around him - not Evelyn's or Dorian's or Eleanor's, nor any of the Wardens. It came instead from overhead and it was dark and oppressive. They could not risk closing the Breach. They would have to send their wounded back through it, have to send themselves. The only other way out was through the Deep Roads and even if the way remained open, even if the link did not break, the journey was too long, too risky.

"Cullen!" Evelyn shouted. "We can't let it through!"

"It may not even want Thedas," Dorian said, hurrying over. "It may want the Fade! Think of the damage it could do!"

Cullen did not know the damage that it could do. He did not want to. He only knew that he saw the Breach swelling as Evelyn fought hard to shrink it down. He only knew that they didn't have time.

"Bring that fucking thing down!" he demanded of his people, and the ones that could obeyed, throwing everything they had at the Archdemon. Varric sent a volley of arrows through the beast's wings and Sera responded in kind.

"But, like," she asked as she fired off another arrow, "it's magic, right? So, does it need wings to fly?"

"Your guess is as good as mine, Buttercup," the dwarf answered. "First Archdemon I ever fought."

"Just get it on the ground!" Cullen shouted, and was joined by Blackwall and Iron Bull, Cole darting around anxiously, seeming to flicker in and out of existence.

"Workin' on it, Curly!" Varric shouted, sending up a bolt that hit the Archdemon in the mouth and exploded. "Score one for the dwarf!" he cried as the Archdemon began an uncontrolled descent. Several dozen pairs of feet darted out of the way as the dragon landed hard on the frozen earth.

"Yes!" Iron Bull laughed and rushed the beast.

* * *

"Wardens! At the ready!"

Eleanor heard Cullen's call as she made her approach. Stroud leaned on her, but not nearly so heavily as he had on Cassandra; his legs were working again, and she sent pulse after pulse of healing warmth into the Grey Warden, feeling the man grow stronger and stronger as she became more and more exhausted. She reached for the lyrium in her pouch and withdrew the half-drunk vial, pulling off the cork with her teeth now, slugging down what was left in the bottle and pitching the glass to the ground. She moaned as the substance hit her system, its song louder than all of the noise around.

"Don't waste your strength on me," Stroud insisted, and as though to prove his ability, he freed himself from the mage, standing not quite straight, but walking on his own, if haltingly. He stopped just then, though, and offered Eleanor his hand. "It has been an absolute pleasure, Eleanor." She took his hand tightly, and slapped the other to his wrist. "Maker keep you," he wished her, and strode off ahead of her, his gate uneven but quick.

"An… Andraste guide you, Stroud!" she called after him, and the words felt right leaving her lips. She followed him, whipping her staff from her back and letting her mana flow into it.

"Wardens!" she heard Stroud's command. "To me!" The soldiers in silver and blue went to their commander, and Eleanor saw now the Archdemon on the ground, snow landing on its scaly back. The creature hissed and spat, but hardly shifted position; Eleanor saw now that one of its front legs had collapsed beneath it. The other forearm held the beast up, but the two back legs only seemed to be able to paddle. It was grounded, and for good, Eleanor suspected. She couldn't see the dragon rising into the air again. Not with a lame leg and two wings ripped to shreds. Arrows pocked its sides and scorch marks stained its black hide, grey on the dark of its body. Its eyes burnt like dark flames still, though, and its jaws snapped fiercely. The Archdemon was down, but not out; but Evelyn was again closing the Breach.

The creature sucked in a deep breath to scream, and Eleanor knew enough now to stop her approach, to clap her hands over her ears. She bowed her head instinctively, her chin to her chest as she pressed her hands against her head like her life depended on it - didn't it, after all?

When the dragon's breath was spent, she darted quickly to the line of mages and archers still peppering the beast with attacks from afar as the soldiers rushed at the creature, blades and armor catching the spare light. Cullen ran ahead of his troops; as Stroud made for dragon's head, Cullen rushed the beast at its side.

The Archdemon's tail whipped around and caught the commander in the chest, knocking him into the air and sending him to the hard ground yards away from where he had stood, his back hitting the earth with a sickening smack. He did not get up.

Eleanor mouth fell open. She tried to breathe but her mouth was dry, and what little air found her lungs in shuddering gasps.

"Cullen..?" she muttered, too soft even to hear her own voice, but with the next breath, she screamed his name, dropping her staff and pitching herself into a run, even as she heard Evelyn calling to her, until she stumbled and fell hard onto her knees, crawling to where the commander's body lay unmoving. She gathered him up into her arms, but he was limp, his head lolled to one side, away from her. Drawing shallow, shuddering she turned his face toward herself.

Blood ran from his mouth, his nose; a red tear had fallen from one eye.

Just as it had in her dream.

"No!" she cried, long and hard and loud, shrieking like the Archdemon itself, but unlike in her dream, she found the power within her, summoned it all up quickly, too quickly, and forced it from her and into him. Stroud's injuries had taken nearly everything out of her, despite the lyrium, and she forced herself to take deep if shuddering breaths around her sobs to replenish the power within her, but soon, too soon, there was no more left. She dug down inside of herself the way she had when Cullen had come home slashed to ribbons; it had not been so long ago but she was so much stronger now, had learned so much more, and even still, nothing. She gave until her vision blurred, until she had to struggle to pull air into her lungs, but Cullen did not stir. She reached frantically for more lyrium.

"Eleanor, stop! Get back here!" Evelyn ran to her, Dorian at her side. They tugged at her, and she heard words about getting away from the Archdemon; she could hear the dragon's cries becoming more desperate, more pained, but she would not let go of Cullen. She sucked down the whole vial of lyrium and forced more magic, more of herself, into Cullen's motionless body.

Then a large pair of arms scooped up both her squirming body and the commander's dead weight, carrying them away from the beast. She heard a scream - a human scream, a man's voice, and then the shrill, wracked shriek of the Archdemon. The arms that carried her - Bull's arms, she realized - seemed to roll, and she sensed he was falling though he held her still, held Cullen, and then there was a flash, a blinding burst of white.

And then nothing.

* * *

 _Author's Note:_ Just a quicky to say thank you so much to the anonymous person who left a review on the last chapter. Brightened my day and was much needed, thank you. :)


	60. I Tried

There was a pounding, a pounding like the world was crumbling around her. Each rap sent shocks of pain through her being, or what she could sense of it; she was only vaguely aware of her body, of the bitter cold around her, of the murmuring voices just on the edge of her hearing.

She was alive, she realized. She was waking up. Her eyes opened, the barest crack, and the light around her was like daggers into the core of her mind. Eleanor flinched, squeezing her eyes shut once more. Sucking in a deep breath, she tasted the cold in her mouth, tasted blood at the back of her throat. Eleanor realized then that the pounding all around her was within her; it was the beating of her heart. She groaned, and it sounded like the low buzz of a hundred bees inside her head. Finding her hands, she pushed herself up from where she had lain.

"Oh, Eleanor!" Evelyn rushed to her side and fell to her knees in the snow, still falling, still heavy, fat flakes, but slower now, softer. The Inquisitor reached and threw her arms around Eleanor, and the jostling made bile rise in Eleanor's throat. She pushed Evelyn away and gasped, forcing the sour taste back down. Eleanor tried to make words but couldn't, instead throwing her arm out straight at her side, waving her open hand, trying to tell Evelyn that she wasn't all there yet. She wanted to lay back down, wanted to press her forehead into the cold snow. She put both palms against the earth now, feeling nothing but snow and dirt beneath her gloves, once white leather, now brown, now red.

Cullen.

Eleanor flung herself up to sit straight, and she swiveled her head, her body, quickly from left to right to left again, grabbing fistfulls of snow as she turned, as she leaned forward, pushing herself to her knees, to her feet. Still no words came, only her hands out before her, grabbing at nothing, grabbing desperately for the man who had fallen in battle, who had fallen and who had not risen.

Her restless eyes spotted him, lying prone on the ground some feet away. Someone had pulled a cloak over him, but the snow fell and collected on it, and she went to him, pushing Varric, pushing Bull out of the way.

"Farm Girl," she heard Varric say. "Eleanor. He's not…"

The big Qunari put out his hand beside Varric, touching the dwarf's chest gently, a caution. "Let 'er go."

Beside Cullen was a mound of fallen darkspawn, and Eleanor hated to be so near to it, hated the sight of it, the smell, the very idea of the thing, but she got down on her knees, bending forward over Cullen's body. She pulled back the brown cloak.

His armor was dented in over his chest, so she reached up around his shoulders and unfastened the buckles; under his arms, along his sides, she did the same, until the plate came away. It was heavy, but she lifted it, pulled it free, set it aside. She moved her hand to his cheek, still stained with blood. Her vision blurred as tears welled up in her eyes, but she made a fist in the snow, packed some hard, and brought the ball to his face, wiping his cheeks with the water that dripped from the ice. Though her gloves were filthy - she was filthy - she used her thumb to slowly wipe the blood away.

Eleanor felt hot tears slide down her cheeks, tears that despite their angry heat, threatened to freeze in the wind, though it had gentled so much. The dark clouds that had seemed to permanent were parting; blue sky peeked through in small, tantalizing patches.

It was all over, she realized. The Archdemon was done. She looked around for the shape of a giant, dead black dragon, but she saw none. All she saw was a black patch on the ground some yards away. It looked like the remains of a bonfire. Above it was the dimmest hint of green where the Breach still shone. The Blight was done.

And in that moment, none of it mattered. Her home was safe, her world was safe, the world of all of these others would not be invaded by the darkspawn horde. And it was meaningless.

For all she had done, for all this power inside of her, for all the months she had spent learning to use it, she was helpless. Snow collected in Cullen's straw blond hair, the silver that lingered in between the gold glinting in the brightening sun, and he lay still.

Eleanor wanted to curse. She wanted to scream, wanted to slam her fists against the frozen ground, wanted to shove Dorian, Varric, Evelyn, the others who stared at her now, wanted to shout down the heavens and beg them take her too. But she couldn't do it. She couldn't even get up, move away from the commander's side. All she could do was lay his head down on his chest and run a hand through his wiry hair, touch his cheek, chilled in the air, rough with stubble, for the last time.

Was he at his Maker's side? Would that be what he wanted? Eleanor realized then that she didn't even know. Her heart pounded doubletime in her chest and every breath she took shook a little more. Her hair had come completely free of her braid and the wind picked up the tangles and whipped them around her cheeks, stinging her, but she couldn't move. Not now. Not yet.

"I'm sorry," it was a soft sound that came between sobs, barely words at all. "I tried, Cullen. I tried." She turned her cheek, pressing her forehead now against his shoulder, bringing her left hand up to cradle his head, the right still resting on her cheek. "I'm so, so sorry…" and the words devolved into gasps, into silent sobs.

"For what?"

It was the barest croak, like gravel under a boot, and it took her a moment to realize that the sound was words at all, and that they came from the man that lay beneath her.

For an instant, she was frozen with shock. She hesitated, not wanting to make words, to break the spell, believing if she moved, if she opened her eyes, it wouldn't have happened, it would have been in her head. But she found a mote of strength, and she breathed his name, moving only her lips.

"Cullen?"

"'Lo, El."

* * *

Author's note: So this story is almost a year old now. It's been finished since last November. I'm thinking I might want to do NaNoWriMo again this year and I want to clear out my queue of old stuff. So I'll be posting the last few chapters of this almost back-to-back, as a bit of a thank you for all the loyal readers who've stuck with me even though I haven't put anything up since April.

Thanks, you guys. Maybe I'll write something new soon. Planning on finishing some stuff up over on my AO3 as well, so we'll see how that goes.


	61. We Made a Promise

Her arms embraced him, holding on like if she let go he would disappear, or the life would leave him again. So she held him, and pressed her face against his neck, sobbing violently now, the relief filling her so entirely that everything else was pushed out.

Weakly, Cullen reached up an arm and touched her back, and she let her grasp slacken enough that she could sit up, bringing him up with her. He rose, pushing his hand down into the snow for balance, and rested his forehead against hers. Blood still stained his face, clung to his stubble and had dried in the lines that gave him character, but he lived. He breathed.

"You were dead," she murmured. "I would swear it."

"That's as may be," he said, clearing his throat, "but I seem to remember we made a promise. One can't just go dying and break a promise." He tipped up his chin, and kissed her, and she held him around his neck, pulling him in and kissing him back, long and slow and tender, as the snow fell to the earth around them, and the sun broke through the clouds.


	62. Last Coat of Paint

Eleanor sat up in bed. The covers were too warm with the spring sunshine filtering in through half-parted curtains. The glass was open just a crack, and it let in the smell of wildflowers and dry earth. It was later on in the day than she would normally rise; beside her the bed was empty and the clock read a quarter past ten.

She had been up late, putting things in boxes - boxes to leave behind, to take to charity sales, to give away, boxes to go with her when she left. It had been a difficult decision to make, leaving Indiana, leaving her childhood home. But with Cullen still Commander, she had decided it would be better to follow him back to Thedas. He had seemed reluctant, but they each saw the logic, and so she'd begun filling boxes. She'd done the very last of the packing in the small hours of the morning, putting away the pictures of her parents, carefully wrapping the frames in newspaper and laying them gently in their cardboard coffins. The barn had been stripped, and her Civic was sold. She decided to keep the truck. After all, she was leaving, it didn't have to be for good. She couldn't sell this place, not after all it had seen. And she could always come back, perhaps on a warm afternoon if she were gripped with nostalgia. No, the house would be hers for as long as she lived, however long that was, or until she found someone better to give it to. Or until, maybe, Cullen gave it all up and succumbed to the quiet life. They'd be closing the Breach behind them, but Evelyn had promised that opening it once more was the least she could do for them. And after all, the link in the Deep Roads remained, but then, who knew what else remained in those dark tunnels. But they had a way home, if they should seek it. Until then, it would be here, full of boxes, full of memories.

Dust motes floated through the yellow sunlight, stirred up most likely by her efforts to clean, and she watched them for a moment, following their evanescent paths through the air, before the sun shifted angles and she could no longer find the glittering white flecks.

She swung her legs over the side of the bed, putting her bare feet on the warm floorboards. She breathed in deep, and could smell coffee. Padding softly to the kitchen, she poured herself a cup from the coffee maker; two mugs, one for her and one for Cullen, and the little Mr. Coffee were the only things they had not yet divested themselves of or packed away. She propped her hip against the counter by the sink. Swiffer lept down from one of the kitchen chairs and brushed her little grey body up against Eleanor's bare legs.

"Good morning, little girl," Eleanor sang. "Where's Cullen?"

The feline only mooped and walked to her food dish, nudging the bowl with her nose.

"You already ate," Eleanor chided, seeing the bits of hard kibble left behind after Swiffer had nibbled away her wet food. "Just because I'm not the one who fed you doesn't mean you didn't eat."

Defeated, the grey kitten stalked away. Eleanor wondered how the cat would like Thedas.

"Hey, Cul?" Eleanor raised her voice and called through the house. It reverberated off of all the empty space, the angles of the cardboard boxes, in a way she could not recall having heard before.

"Out here, El," came his voice through the dining room window.

In nothing but a t-shirt that was definitely too big to be hers and a pair of dark blue underwear, Eleanor went out to the porch, letting the screen door slam behind her. She stood there for a long moment, drinking in the blue spring sky, the green grass, the trees in the far distance. They were heavy with blossoms, ready to sprout leaves. A gentle chill still clung to the breeze, but it was warm in the stillness, even here in the shade. Closing her eyes, Eleanor breathed in the smell of pollen, of soil, of Indiana spring. Oh, but she would miss it.

But her feet found the stairs, and she strolled onto the lawn, gripping the fresh grass for a moment in her bare toes before stepping carefully around to the back of the house.

"Cullen?"

"Good morning," Cullen said, standing on the lawn, wearing a white t-shirt and jeans, a cigarette dangling from his lips. In his hands he held a paintbrush, and his clothes were streaked with Loyal Blue. He was looking at the side of the house proudly. It was done.

"Thought the old girl deserved at least her last coat of paint finished before we left."

Eleanor's face split into a wide smile. She set the coffee mug down on the grass before jumping into Cullen's embrace. He dropped the paintbrush and picked her up and spun in a small circle before setting her back down and kissing her forehead. They parted and stood side by side, Cullen's arm over Eleanor's shoulder, and for just a moment, they stood back and admired their combined handywork, spaced out over nearly the span of a year.

Cullen passed the cigarette to Eleanor and she took a drag, before handing it back to Cullen. He pulled her in a little closer and bent his neck to kiss the top of her head, brown hair still disarrayed from sleep, but warm in the sun. He turned his head and rested his cheek on her warm hair. He took a deep pull from the cigarette and flicked ash into the grass.

"You know," he said, breathing out smoke that was swept away by a breeze and giving her shoulder a squeeze, "I'm not entirely married to the idea of going back to Thedas. I mean - this place isn't so bad. We could just stay in Indiana."

Fin

* * *

Author's Note: SO THAT'S IT GUYS. That's the end.

Now, I am still working on getting the beta-read version of this completed. It's going up on AO3 in fits and spurts (same username and title if you're curious) and I will be doing NaNoWriMo again this year and who am I kidding it'll probably be more DA:I fanfic. I'm also going to be working on posting another bit of fluff here that I'm about to finish, so if you wanna add me to your author alerts or favorites or just keep an eye out, there might be some more soon. Much lighter and fluffier, but still plenty of Cullen. ;)

Thanks for sticking with me, guys. Yinz mean the world to me.


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